Down in Navarro County, we had DirecTV (actually Pegasus TV), but that was in the days when you bought your own dish and receiver and installed them yourself.
When we bought this house 4 years ago last month, Centurytel Telephone Company, which I'd never heard of, also provides DSL Internet service and Dish Network all on one bill. I was generally happy with it for several months, but when the satellite TV service quit working and I called and after doing all the testing they had me to, they decided the receiver was bad. The guy said the receiver was still under warranty (less than a year old and it was rented from them
), but that I'd have to pay $14.95 shipping and handling for them to send me a new one and that it would come with detailed installation instructions. OK, I did that, paid the S&H, installed the new receiver, carefully following their printed instructions, and it didn't work. At least I got a nice young lady on the phone who figured out a way for me to make it work, but not even close to the written instructions.
So everything was OK for a few months and the same problem happened again. After doing all the checking they had me do before, I figured it was a bad receiver again, so I called and got a genuine half-wit on the phone. He had me do all the checking again, then concluded the problem was the remote and he'd have to send me a new remote, at my expense, of course. Now I can't claim to know much about electronics, but I do know enough to know beyond any shadow of a doubt that the problem was the receiver, not the remote control.
That's when I called DirecTV in April of last year and have had them ever since. With the programming we pay for at nearly a hundred dollars a month, if Dish had just sent someone out here to make their system work at no additional charge, I'd still be with them. I'm paying about the same price for DirecTV but it also includes $5 a month for in-home service if needed. I don't really think either company is much better than the other one.