# Wow! Dish CSR strikes again...



## Dave in Atlanta (Jan 10, 2007)

Tomorrow, I am scheduled for D* HD install. I made the decision to switch with some concern, because I've been satisfied with E* SD service over the last four years, and I understand that D* has its own issues.

But with "new customer" deals at D*, my monthly savings are immediate, and extend over the 2 year term.

All that to say, I called E* to make sure (again) that I understood their best "keep me and upgrade me" offer. After telling the rep 3 times that I would not debate content with him (20+HD vs. 10 HD for Direct) because I am not interested in the additional channels, he confirmed that I had been given the best possible pricing. He also assured me that E* has the LOWEST cost HD service, and that perhaps my spreadsheet calculations were wrong...(my spreadsheet shows E* as $5 / mo higher than HD cable and $15 / mo higher than D* - who to believe? The CSR or my lyin' eyes?)

He went on to say that there were new promotions coming Feb 1. When I reminded him that I would be a D* customer by then, and perhaps we should discuss those now, he responded that he could only talk about them after February 1.

I will say this. After that conversation, it will be easier to leave Dish Network that I thought it would be.


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## mxd (Jan 17, 2006)

Thanks Dave. I have been pondering the same thing, and now with the HBO lawsuit, you made my decision that much easier.


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## killzone (Dec 27, 2006)

Dave in Atlanta said:


> He also assured me that E* has the LOWEST cost HD service, and that perhaps my spreadsheet calculations were wrong...(my spreadsheet shows E* as $5 / mo higher than HD cable and $15 / mo higher than D* - who to believe? The CSR or my lyin' eyes?)


Fios doesn't charge ANYTHING extra for HD, neither does Cablevision. Unless you really want Voom they are far from lowest cost HD service(I'm sure there are some people that like it, but I don't believe for a second that it's anywhere near a majority).


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## TBoneit (Jul 27, 2006)

Cablevision doesn't charge anything for HD... True and False.

I'd have to pay a higher per month rent for just a HD box to get the "Free" HD content and even more per month for a HD DVR per a conversation with their CSR.

Technically free but not free in for real.

Cablevision is why I'm a E* customer via first being a D* customer.

When they started running their adverts knocking satellite TV I said to myself I wonder what they are afraid of.


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## Hound (Mar 20, 2005)

TBoneit said:


> Cablevision doesn't charge anything for HD... True and False.
> 
> I'd have to pay a higher per month rent for just a HD box to get the "Free" HD content and even more per month for a HD DVR per a conversation with their CSR.
> 
> ...


Yes, but E also charges $6 a month for its HD box, so E is $20 for HD and $6 for
HD box = $26 per month. How much is a HD box from Cablevision? My cable company charges $7 a month for an HD box. $1 more than E. E is the highest cost
HD provider. The real issue is does E have the programming that you want or
does Cablevision. The county that I live in central NJ is Mercer. Cablevision
in Mercer provides YES HD, SNY HD, MSG HD and FSNY HD. Cablevision also
provides Comcast Sportsnet Philadelphia SD. E does not provide any of these
channels. Cablevision expanded basic package including all HD channels is only
$48 per month in Mercer County (that was last year's rate) and also includes
INHD, PBS HD, CW HD and MY HD. Cablevision is cheaper than E for HD. The issue
is which HD channels do you want and do you want Comcast Sportsnet Philadelphia as well.


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## TBoneit (Jul 27, 2006)

Hound said:


> Yes, but E also charges $6 a month for its HD box, so E is $20 for HD and $6 for
> HD box = $26 per month. How much is a HD box from Cablevision? My cable company charges $7 a month for an HD box. $1 more than E. E is the highest cost
> HD provider. The real issue is does E have the programming that you want or
> does Cablevision. The county that I live in central NJ is Mercer. Cablevision
> ...


OTOH the E* HD channels for $20 are not available in SD. The cablevision adverts as I read them are saying you get whatever HD channels we are broadcasting that are included in your SD sub for free. IOWs if I sub HBO then I'll get the HD HBO if I don't sub HNO I won't get the HBO HD.

This to me is pretty much what E* does with HD s that also have SD feeds. The HD $20 is extra HD only channels.....

As it happens I like the channels in the HD Gold package. Do I miss the Yankees? No, if they were not being greedy they'd still be on locals where they are available to everybody including those that lost out because they only use an antenna for TV. Everybody does not want or need cable or whatever. My brother lived for years with rabbit ears that could deliver a good strength but much ghosting. Why, he refers to TV as the boob tube and means it. He listens to radio and watches the weather and some racing on tv and that's it. He likes the yankees but isn't going to pay for cable just for the Yankees.


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## Hound (Mar 20, 2005)

TBoneit said:


> OTOH the E* HD channels for $20 are not available in SD. The cablevision adverts as I read them are saying you get whatever HD channels we are broadcasting that are included in your SD sub for free. IOWs if I sub HBO then I'll get the HD HBO if I don't sub HNO I won't get the HBO HD.
> 
> This to me is pretty much what E* does with HD s that also have SD feeds. The HD $20 is extra HD only channels.....
> 
> As it happens I like the channels in the HD Gold package. Do I miss the Yankees? No, if they were not being greedy they'd still be on locals where they are available to everybody including those that lost out because they only use an antenna for TV. Everybody does not want or need cable or whatever. My brother lived for years with rabbit ears that could deliver a good strength but much ghosting. Why, he refers to TV as the boob tube and means it. He listens to radio and watches the weather and some racing on tv and that's it. He likes the yankees but isn't going to pay for cable just for the Yankees.


Here is the lowest monthly pricing of HDTV Providers in Mercer County, NJ. Dish is by far the most expensive. All of these packages except Dish include YES Network in HD which provides the Yankees for no extra cost. The packages are for one HD
receiver. I am rounding off the 99 or 98 cents.

Dish Network HD Bronze $50 plus locals $5 plus HD receiver fee $6 equals $61.
Includes 26 HD channels with 15 Voom HD and 4 HD locals. Does not include
HD regional sports or SD regional sports networks.

Directv Family Choice with locals and regional sports networks $30, $11 HD pack fee, $6 HD receiver fee equals $47. Includes HD regional sports networks YES HD
and SNY HD. Also includes HD feeds of NY Rangers ice hockey per D's website,
and 5 HD locals, 7 national HD channels and SD regional sports networks, MSG
and FSNY.

Cablevision Family Cable (expanded basic) $47 per month plus $6 for high
definition receiver equals $53 per month. Includes 7 HD local stations, 4 HD
regional sports networks, YES HD, SNY HD, MSG HD, FSNY HD, 3 national HD
channels, and regional sports network Comcast Sportsnet Philadelphia SD.

Verizon Fios TV Premier $43 plus $10 high definition receiver equals $53.
Includes 8 local HD stations, 3 HD regional sports Networks, Comcast
Sportsnet Philadelphia HD, SNY HD and YES HD, two SD regional sports networks,
MSG and FSNY, and 11 HD national channels.

The bottom line is Directv has the lowest cost HD package at $47, Cablevision
and Fios are at $53 and Dish is at $61.

Dish is more expensive than any of the other HDTV providers. There is no question about it. Both Cablevision and Verizon Fios do give the option of adding up to five HD premium movie channels, HBO, Starz, etc. Dish gives the option of three HD premiums and Directv gives the option of two premiums.

Now you may like Gold, but the cheapest Gold package with locals and one
HD receiver is $81 a month. What channels you want is a personal preference.
I think the Verizon Fios HD package at $53 is much better value than Gold because
you can add the Verizon Movie package for $13 which includes three HD
movie channels, Starz, SHO and TMC. Also, if you have Verizon internet, you get a
$5 bundle discount on the movie package, so Verizon with movies only costs
$61. I understand that Verizon is not yet available in every town in NJ, but it
eventually will be.

Dave in Atlanta started this thread and he is correct that DISH is by far the
highest cost HDTV provider. And the subs have to evaluate whether the
Dish HD programming is what they really want. Do you want to pay more
for HD channels that you do not watch, and not get the channels that you
really want (HD RSNs)? Some subs yes, some subs no.


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## robert koerner (Aug 20, 2005)

What is so strange about an employee telling you he cannot give you a February price in January?


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## TBoneit (Jul 27, 2006)

Well I know what you are saying but the channels I like are on Dish.... Not just HD channels. Watching SD doesn't bother me. I have three E* DVRs in the house, 1 Dishplayer, 1 721 and 1 622. BTW I do like the Dishplayer. The only reason I had stopped using it was lack of a legacy adaptor. Now that Dish put in a DPP44 I can use it again. And that let me retire two 501s that I used to run. I'm not a big sports fan. The Yankees I stopped watching with any regularity a while back and then when they got greedy and cut off all the OTA watchers via the YES network mechanism well....


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## Dave in Atlanta (Jan 10, 2007)

robert koerner said:


> What is so strange about an employee telling you he cannot give you a February price in January?


I wasn't asking to RECEIVE the price in January. I sincerely wanted to know if there would be new options for me February 1, because the "best" offer that E* could give me to stay with them after 4+ years was going to cost $450 more than D* over the next 24 months.

I thought both parties could win if there was something new around the corner. I would have been happy to wait 2 weeks for a more attractive HD offer. It would not have to beat the D* offer.

So, I asked what would be available among these new (announced) promotions for existing subs who wanted to upgrade...he said new stuff in February but we could not discuss it until then. I reminded him that I would be a FORMER subscriber by then unless I could learn of something interesting on the way. He said that I could not.

So, the CSR gets his wish. D* installation went flawlessly, the service is excellent, and I'm paying less (with some promos) the first 10 months for D* HD than I currently pay for E* SD. And today I call to cancel E*.

I tried. Really I did.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

I have worked for companies with nondisclosure agreements... and even if we knew something was going to be announced tomorrow, we could NOT discuss it today. I was in a position more than once where I knew something was coming soon that might change a person's plans, but had I spilled the beans I likely would have been fired... and while I felt sorry for people needing info to make a decision, it wasn't worth risking my job over.

So in this arena, I sympathise very much with a CSR who wouldn't divulge that kind of info. Consider it a favor they even acknowledged something better coming soon and encouraging you to wait as they really probably should not have said even that much.


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## HarryS (Mar 6, 2005)

In my area, cable isn't even an option if HD...or even digital channels are wanted.


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## Sharkie_Fan (Sep 26, 2006)

Dave in Atlanta said:


> I wasn't asking to RECEIVE the price in January. I sincerely wanted to know if there would be new options for me February 1, because the "best" offer that E* could give me to stay with them after 4+ years was going to cost $450 more than D* over the next 24 months.


My uncle was an E* subscriber and came across the same thing you did. He wanted to upgrade and D* had offers for new customers. He called E* and went around and around with them. He liked the E* product, but the "deals" he was getting to upgrade didn't come anywhere close to the deals that E* was offering new subscribers.

So he switched to D*.

About 3 months later, E* sent him a letter saying "We really want you back" and basically gave him the same deal that E* was giving new subscribers. He called up LIVID, since he had already switched and they were now offering him what he was asking for in the first place. He finally got put through to some supervisor who basically said that the person who let him go in the first place was being "reviewed" because if a customer threatens to leave, they want the call escalated to the next level - E*s verson of retention, I guess. He explained the situation to this supervisor, and she basically said "Yeah, that's my biggest complaint with this company." She claimed that even she, as an employee, didn't get the same kind of deals that a new customer would get, and she'd complained about it and hadn't been able to get anything to change...

Anyway. Long story short, he paid the ETF with D* to switch back to E* because he'd been so happy there in the first place, and was used to their equipment, etc... He ended up paying as much or more than he would have to just pay the upgrade price in the first place, but.... Well, I guess stubbornness runs in our family.:sure:


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## ssmith10pn (Jul 6, 2005)

Dave in Atlanta said:


> Tomorrow, I am scheduled for D* HD install. I made the decision to switch with some concern, because I've been satisfied with E* SD service over the last four years, and I understand that D* has its own issues.
> 
> But with "new customer" deals at D*, my monthly savings are immediate, and extend over the 2 year term.
> 
> ...


See ya! :lol:  :lol:

Happy Dish customer here! :grin:


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## killzone (Dec 27, 2006)

TBoneit said:


> This to me is pretty much what E* does with HD s that also have SD feeds. The HD $20 is extra HD only channels.....


This is not the case. If you want any of the national HD channels (TNT,ESPN) even if you already get them in SD, you have to pay their $20 fee.

If this were not the case, then I wouldn't have any issues with their pricing. I can deal with having to pay $6 to get whatever HD channels are available that I already get in SD.


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## killzone (Dec 27, 2006)

Hound said:


> Verizon Fios TV Premier $43 plus $10 high definition receiver equals $53.
> Includes 8 local HD stations, 3 HD regional sports Networks, Comcast
> Sportsnet Philadelphia HD, SNY HD and YES HD, two SD regional sports networks,
> MSG and FSNY, and 11 HD national channels.


Another important point for comparison with Fios is that they supposedly have the highest picture quality for HD. I haven't personally seen their content, but there are people that have done side by side comparisons between Fios, Cablevision, D* and E*.


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## Ashtonian (Jan 31, 2007)

What do you mean by picture quality? It's a digital picture. Is HD (MPEG) like a JPEG? different quality levels of compression? I do notice you can get compression artifacts on blends, especially noticeable on BBC America on my D*


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## wje (Mar 8, 2006)

HD quality varies considerably. Both D* and E* tend to overcompress and down-rez because of bandwidth limitations. Fiber (in theory) has much greater bandwidth, so they don't have to crank up the compression. D* is well known for this, which is one reason I left them. However, with their new satellites going up, they might be able to improve things quite a bit; just depend on what they use the extra bandwidth for.

Unfortunately, even with a full resolution signal, frequently the content isn't always of high enough quality to really merit being called HD, although the broadcast is HD. An exteme example is the not all that uncommon rescaling of standard NTSC (SD) content. It's an HD signal with SD resolution!


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## c4racer (Feb 3, 2007)

I don't think the $6 fee applies when you get the $20 HD package. I just signed up for new service and the CSR said the $6 HD access fee only applies if you have HD capable equipment but do not subscribe to the HD package - so I think it would give you access to the locals in HD only. When he set up my pricing, the $6 fee was not added because I subscribed to the $20 HD package. Not sure if this is a new interpretation of this fee or what. When I entered all the same info into the DISH-builder on the web, that $6 does pop up. So who knows, but supposedly it won't be on my bill.


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## Hound (Mar 20, 2005)

c4racer said:


> I don't think the $6 fee applies when you get the $20 HD package. I just signed up for new service and the CSR said the $6 HD access fee only applies if you have HD capable equipment but do not subscribe to the HD package - so I think it would give you access to the locals in HD only. When he set up my pricing, the $6 fee was not added because I subscribed to the $20 HD package. Not sure if this is a new interpretation of this fee or what. When I entered all the same info into the DISH-builder on the web, that $6 does pop up. So who knows, but supposedly it won't be on my bill.


\

It will be on your bill. There is a $6 fee for every HD receiver. I thought last year
we would get one HD receiver free with Platinum HD package. That was what I
was told. But my bill had the $6 fee plus HD Platinum. After many calls to Customer
Service, I was resigned to the $6 fee. Now I have two $6 fees because I have
two HD receivers. My bill is $89.99 AEP, $20. HD, $5 locals $6, $6, $5 and $5 =
grand total of $136.99 for two HD receivers and two SD receivers. Very pricey.


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## CABill (Mar 20, 2005)

Hound said:


> It will be on your bill. There is a $6 fee for every HD receiver.


It isn't clear cut, and there are MANY $6 fees. Someone signing up as a new/returning subscriber can get a ViP HD receiver without any $6 fee for the 1st ViP. c4racer was referring to the $6 HD Enable fee that gets waived with a subscription to DishHD. The $6 lease fee on a ViP receiver obtained by an existing subscriber under the DIU promotion will always have a $6 lease fee (and can ALSO be subject to the $6 HD Enable fee w/o a DishHD subscription). There are other $6/month fees that don't apply here as well.

c4racer - the $6 HD Enable fee appears on DishBuilder even when you add DishHD, but it really won't be on your bill.


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## paulman182 (Aug 4, 2006)

I cancelled E* last fall and they have called my house repeatedly, sometimes every thirty minutes, up to eight times in a single day. My wife talked to them and told them we were not interested in coming back, and to take us off their call list. Maybe they finally have done that, or it may be another calm before the storm.

We are very happy with D* HD and the 5LNB dish is much, much more resistant to rain and snow fade than our old E* dual LNB dish. We don't have to worry about channels disappearing due to a contract dispute, either. Mr. Ergen runs E* like a small-town TV cable.


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## robert koerner (Aug 20, 2005)

Glad you found a provider you like.

Sometimes, employees are not allowed to talk about whatever info they have about future (price) changes. Sometimes they do not have 100 accurate info; or th plan changes.

Bob


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## bigthrust (Feb 21, 2007)

Getting satellite service is like buying a car. Compare apples to apples the best way you can and go with whomever has the cheaper bottom line. It's all about the bottom line.


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