# Dish says it cannot upgrade package??



## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

My cousin recently upgraded to HD with Dish network. He is supposed to call me with all the model numbers, as he doesnt know anything about electronics at all, but this is what he wants to do...

He has a package with a few channels, I believe its AT120. He has a DVR in the living room, which also is hooked to a tv in his kitchen. He has another SD box in the upstairs bedroom.
The installer swapped out his dish about 3 months ago, and put up "a big one" on the roof. He said it was pointed to the southwest toward where the sun sets. Guessing he is on western arc, as he is in Wisconsin.

He called to upgrade to AT250 to get more channels. The operator told him he couldnt do that without changing out the box upstairs. He said he didnt care about the box upstairs but the operator told him he would have to "upgrade" the box upstairs at an additional $5 per month to be able to change packages to AT250.

This does not sound right to me, but Im not up on Dish stuff. Can he upgrade packages without changing equipment if he just wants the new channels on his DVR in the living room?


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## RasputinAXP (Jan 23, 2008)

That sounds very wrong. I'll defer to one of the DishNIRT folks who's likely to follow up here.


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## BobaBird (Mar 31, 2002)

ISTR reading that an HD upgrade requires (for policy reasons, not technical) that all receivers be upgraded to HD. Why should he be charged to replace something that should have been done presumably the same time as the dish?


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

A lot of this does depend on the actual equipment he has installed... but unless he was on eastern arc where they are requiring the ViP receivers... I can't think of another scenario where you would need to upgrade an old receiver to go from AT120 to AT250.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

OK. He hasnt gotten me the receiver list yet, but when he got his HDTV 3 months ago, they came out and installed a HDDVR, and then did something with the dish on the roof, but had to return a couple days later and install a bigger dish. So he has HD on his DVR in the living room, and SD on the kitchen tv running off the DVR, and SD on a stand alone receiver in the bedroom upstairs. 

So, if the DVR is currently getting HD, and the upstairs receiver works now, and the kitchen ones works, what would stop him from being able to change packages to get more channels? Are some of the AT200 channels or AT250 channels located only on the eastern arc or something, that would require they come repoint the dish and change out the receiver upstairs?


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## tampa8 (Mar 30, 2002)

Any answer you get it going to be a guess. And I disagree with RasputinAXP, it doesn't sound very wrong. 

You need to tell us what satellites he is seeing. Guessing only, I would say the next package has some HD on a satellite he is not getting that he should be getting. OR .....dish as the wrong information about what he as. As others mentioned, if he was on the Eastern Arc sats, it could also be because he has an SD recever assigned to his account. (They won't give me some international programming because of that, even though I have the correct satellites....)


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## [email protected] Network (Jan 5, 2011)

Offhand, I agree with if he is EA then we require all receivers to be updated to HD. The only other cause that requires an upgrade is if he has a "Discontinued/Outdated Receiver". There are some receivers that don't have the correct technology to broadcast the current signals we transmit and would be required to upgrade. Once he gets the receiver list and satellite list then we can provide more information. 

If he does have one of those receivers then it's possible his account may qualify for a special upgrade to get it changed out. He would have to contact me with the account # in order for me to look into that specific option.


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## Davenlr (Sep 16, 2006)

Will do TommyF, as soon as I get the list from him...but I would think if he had any "old outdated" receivers, they would have changed them out three months ago when they came to install his HD service and HDDVR in the living room. Will post further info when I get it.


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## RasputinAXP (Jan 23, 2008)

tampa8 said:


> Any answer you get it going to be a guess. And I disagree with RasputinAXP, it doesn't sound very wrong.


It sounds very wrong to me because if he has a recently installed HD-DVR then it's a ViP. If he was being upgraded to EA, they would've been required to swap out the old MPEG2 receiver.

If he's already receiving the programming, I can't think of a scenario that would wind up requiring a receiver upgrade if it's just a bump up in tier.

Admittedly as we've said, it's speculation because we don't know what receivers he has, so...if he didn't mention the other receiver to the installer, it could've been skipped. We won't know until we get the info.


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