# Cable vs. Satellite in a storm



## rahchgo (Feb 2, 2007)

Yesterday, we had two waves of awsome thunderstorms and lightning here in Chicago. There are trees down, flash flood warnings, and power outages all over the metropolitan area. Well beyond the average storm damage. 

My thoughts and prayes to those that did not surive this storm without damage or injury. Incrediably, there have been no reports of storm related deaths that I have seen in this mornings news. 

I'm one of the lucky ones. My power only went off once, and that was a one second surge. My dish surivived 60 mph/wind gusts, and I even managed to record Big Brother 8 with my OTA. Rain fade had the satellite feed down during that hour as the second storm came through. 

So this morning I'm thinking about a funny ad that Comcast runs in Chicago. It asks "Who would want a dish in the Windy City?" Now I'd like to know some numbers. People lost their dishes last night in Chicago. People lost cable service due to downed wires, too. It would be fun to know the raw numbers and percentages of which type of service faired better in the storm.


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## Geronimo (Mar 23, 2002)

Cable companies are notorious about playing up the possibility of weather related satellite outages while downplaying their own. I would love to see the statistics too but I suspect that they do not exist.


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## HIPAR (May 15, 2005)

With DBS you get your picture back when the rain stops. With cable you get your picture back when they fix the broken lines. With either, you get your picture back when the power comes back on.

--- CHAS


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## DrZaiusATL (Sep 5, 2007)

HIPAR said:


> With DBS you get your picture back when the rain stops. With cable you get your picture back when they fix the broken lines. With either, you get your picture back when the power comes back on.
> 
> --- CHAS


Don't forget that they use DISHES for most of their services as well. They can easily suffer rain fade as other dish owners. In fact about the only services they get on fiber are locals and maybe some movie tiers. That is part of the commercials they leave out of course.


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## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

> That is part of the commercials they leave out of course.


When that is brought up, it makes me cringe. Comparing end user mini dish systems to the big dishes at the cable head end (similar to those used at Echostar and DirecTV uplink facilities) is like comparing apples to grapefruits. There is no irony to it, It's no different than me saying your satellite dish's LNB is connected to the receiver via a coax cable.



> they can easily suffer rain fade as other dish owners.


I'm sure there's some rain storms that pass through in Bristol, CT and Atlanta, GA, I have never lost ESPN or TBS due to rain at their broadcasting facilities 
The larger the dish, the more immune to rain fade. These dish antennas have nothing on the little pizza pans when it comes to signal fade. It's been a while since I drove by, but just seeing the rows of large dishes at my cable plants main headend, they are not exactly 18"-24" dishes, it would take quite the storm to lose a signal on those babies, and in 18 months back with cable, downtime due to weather at my end and theirs is exactly 0 minutes.


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## DrZaiusATL (Sep 5, 2007)

Well you do bring up some good points. There are large gain differences between a 4.6m vs 24" but rain fade does occur. More regular than you think, you might not be watching the affected channel at the time. I have witnessed on countless occasions when a headend losses signal because of weather. It's not that big a deal I was just trying to add commentary and experience to the original post. Rain Fade does OCCUR even with antenna as large as 15m. Even at C Band. Either you work for a cable company or you really really really like cable. Either way It does not matter much to me. Just try to relax a little.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

> The larger the dish, the more immune to rain fade.


Close, but not quite. You have to figure into the equation the power of the satellite transponder broadcasting to the dish. If the satellite has more power (such as a DBS satellite does) it can use a smaller dish to have a similar rain fade margin as a larger dish with a weaker satellite.


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## DrZaiusATL (Sep 5, 2007)

Do we even want to start talking about Freqs ?


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## ncted (Aug 19, 2006)

Reminds me of an ironic story. In late 2005, I picked up an HR10-250 (HD DirecTiVO) in advance of the Winter Olympics in HD in February 2006. Once they finally came on, everything was in SD since they were having reception problems in NYC due to a snow storm. I had my HDTV, my HD TiVO, an OTA antenna that could pick up the local NBC station (if nothing else at the time), but I was forced to watch the Olympics in SD due to a snow storm 600 miles away!

Ted


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## morphy (Jun 5, 2007)

Basically the difference is that you lose your signal either way and:

* The cable CSR tells you that the problem is on your end, and it actually isnt.
* The DBS CSR tells you that the problem is on your end, and it actually is.


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## glennb (Sep 21, 2006)

I love it when someone from the cabletv company calls or knocks on the door to discuss switching me from DIRECTV to CABLETV. They always say - Your dish goes out when it rains !! 


Mine hardly ever goes out in the rain. If so it's only for a few minutes, when the worst part of the storm is coming thru.


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## Trendy2 (Apr 16, 2007)

Here in the Chicago area, Comcast has a commercial that emphasizes this as well - a man on the roof about to take a baseball bat to his satellite dish in a storm - "I just want to watch the game!" he cries. A knowledgable, wise monk quips "Who orders a dish in the city of wind?" 
What's funny is, I've seen this commercial at least 5 times tonight alone on a few different networks - I think they're losing customers big time right about now (including myself). Can't wait to call and cancel next week when the D* installer comes.
I had DirecTV a long time ago (about 7 or 8 years ago), I've had Comcast a couple times (have had them for 2 1/2 years up until now), I've also had Dish Network for 2 years and the outages have been about the same with all three over that time period. If anything, I've had more outages with Comcast than the others. Comcast is good about crediting your bill with any lost viewing outages though.


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## countysky (Aug 27, 2007)

I have recently started using an internet satellite provider that uses a one way system to download the signal to my home, obviously through a satellite, and upload my request sent back through a cable line. This is the absolute best solution to the rain fade satellite problem. If you know much about rain fade, you would know that the majority of the problem occurs when the customer is requesting back information from the station. It is the tiny weak dish that me and you have that can't push the signal through nasty rain clouds, but the satellites can usually get the signal back. This is what I have gathered through my own research. It might not be this easy when it comes to getting a streaming TV signal, rather than an online page.. Where as with a web page is sent and loaded, and awaiting another request, the TV signal is constantly moving and providing new data for your viewing. If I am wrong, please, someone let me know, but I think that TV companies should look into this one way, or looped style service.

Countysky


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

TV is a one way system (over satellite), just like your satellite internet service. I was a beta tester (and customer) for Starband for quite some time. I had much more frequent outages with Starband than I have had with Dish over the years. BUT, Starband was on a weaker satellite, so I would have expected this. Satellite internet (even only one way) is a good choice only if you have no alternatives. One way satellite is the lesser of the two satellite alternatives. I often upload pictures to a site (pbase.com/rking401). Uploading pictures over the system that you have would take FOREVER since they are uploading only at dialup speeds. A full two way high speed satellite internet would work much better.


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