Dish Network vs Direct TV

[rekees4300]

A LOT of reruns on cable too!

I'm liking the Direct TV Now pretty well.

The Apple TV has YouTube on it so I can watch that on tv. Mostly I'm a news junkie so I get enough of that.

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With a Verizon 20GB monthly data cap, any service that's Internet based is impractical.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

With a Verizon 20GB monthly data cap, any service that's Internet based is impractical.

Agreed. I just went from a 10Gb/mo Exede satellite plan to a 50Gb+50Gb/mo satellite plan with Hughesnet. That +50Gb is only available from 2AM to 8AM, but it's a heck of a lot handier than Exede's unlimited data between midnight and 5AM, a real insomniac's delight and it was turning me into one! The Hughes plan is not unlimited, and still not enough to switch off the satellite TV, but enough to at least see what I've been missing on youtube, Netflix, and Amazon's streaming services. For $80/mo, it's hard to beat if you have no other options for "high speed" Internet.

Oh BTW, the Exede service is very aptly named. I was going over my 10 Gb/mo data cap every month by at least 20Gb, usually by much more. At $10/Gb, it was adding up fast. Even worse, trying to watch any streaming video was met with a continuous series of buffering interruptions. Their tech support was useless, pretty much admitting that everyone is plagued with the same problem.

 

[dickfoster]

I'll agree to the "too much greed" part, but the local broadcaster also pays for programming from the national syndicate, as well as other content. I don't think it's fair for Dish to take that content without paying fair market value for it and then charge their customers for accessing it. And I fault both companies for using their respective customer bases as bargaining chips in the negotiation, especially since rural folks often have no alternative but to use one satellite company or the other and they both use the same tactics.

The local station in question, KRCR out of Redding, CA, has posted its position here, and I think it makes a lot more sense than the absolute BS I got from Dish "customer service" when I called to complain about the missing channel that I contracted with them to provide and that they have now dropped. The $5/mo. credit that they said they'd issue starting next month for three months isn't sufficient compensation for the missing news and weather info that KRCR was providing daily. There's only one other local channel, and their news and weather is far inferior to that of KRCR.

Of course they are going to state their case in their light which is more money for them. However, it costs the broadcaster nothing. Dish and other providers pick it up off the air and rebroadcast it and if anyone pays for that it is them. The broadcaster has a license to use the public's bandwidth to broadcast and their advertising income already covers their costs and profit. By charging the other providers who rebroadcast even more money they are trying to pass along more costs along to us the customers unfairly which is pure profit for the broadcaster. Dish or the other's aren't going to take it out of their pockets as all costs are passed along to consumers who eventually have to pay for it. The point is why should I a member of the public pay for something that others receive out of the air for free? Are we not part of the public too? The sooner everyone gets that simple fact though their heads the more other stuff will make more sense. Taxes on business for example are all past along and eventually paid by us the end consumer at the end of the chain. A tax on business is simply a disguised tax on we the people. There simply are no free lunches. No part of any product or service chain is going to absorb the costs for anything, they will simply pass it along to us to pay for instead. It's just that simple. If anything they will add a profit surcharge on top of it and we end up paying even more. Let's keep it simple. Broadcasters are in business and licensed to use public bandwidth to broadcast so they should be made to stick to their knitting.

 

[rekees4300]

Agreed. I just went from a 10Gb/mo Exede satellite plan to a 50Gb+50Gb/mo satellite plan with Hughesnet.

Been there, done that. IMO satellite is a last resort when the only alternative is dial-up.

 

[dickfoster]

A LOT of reruns on cable too!

I'm liking the Direct TV Now pretty well.

The Apple TV has YouTube on it so I can watch that on tv. Mostly I'm a news junkie so I get enough of that.

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My wife is a news junkie too but when I quiz her on anything she has no answers so I expect it's just noise to fill the void for her. For me it's music but I do like to keep up with current events too which there has been no shortage of since the last election campaign kicked off. One thing I'll say for him, Trump is one busy guy and although he's a little older than I am, I don't think I could keep up with him. I think a big reason he was elected is because he simply worked the rest of em into the ground and wore em all out.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Been there, done that. IMO satellite is a last resort when the only alternative is dial-up.

I agree with this 1000%!!!

Unfortunately, my only options here are copper wire based dial-up 28.8 modem (no DSL) or satellite. 4G LTE coverage is intermittent or not at all, so cellular is out. Radio based WiMAX 802.XX services don't have line-of-site. Perhaps 5G will work in the future, but again it's a tower line-of-site problem. I had Hughesnet when I first moved here 7 years ago and it was truly the worst. Now, with the higher data caps and ability to buy more data anytime, at least it's workable.

 

[dickfoster]

I agree with this 1000%!!!

Unfortunately, my only options here are copper wire based dial-up 28.8 modem (no DSL) or satellite. 4G LTE coverage is intermittent or not at all, so cellular is out. Radio based WiMAX 802.XX services don't have line-of-site. Perhaps 5G will work in the future, but again it's a tower line-of-site problem. I had Hughesnet when I first moved here 7 years ago and it was truly the worst. Now, with the higher data caps and ability to buy more data anytime, at least it's workable.

An interesting aside. I think I heard a while back that Hughesnet was now owned by Dish.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Dish or the other's aren't going to take it out of their pockets as all costs are passed along to consumers who eventually have to pay for it.

My point is that Dish IS passing along the costs to consumers, in this case ME. And by blocking the local ABC affiliate, they are not delivering the service for which I've contracted and for which I'm being charged. That is why they are refunding the local channel fee until all local broadcast affiliates are once again included in the Dish feed.

Let's keep it simple. Broadcasters are in business and licensed to use public bandwidth to broadcast so they should be made to stick to their knitting.

It would be nice to live in a simple world, but we do not. Dish and DirecTV charge their customers for local channels, and if they are redistributing local content for which they have no license or agreement to use, that is theft of intellectual property, same as with Internet pirates and music/movies. Unlike Dish/DirecTV, when I receive a broadcast signal, I do not redistribute it for profit. That's the difference that your argument does not recognize.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

An interesting aside. I think I heard a while back that Hughesnet was now owned by Dish.

I did not know this. Interesting indeed. But after reading this article, it's still not clear to me just who owns what!

 

[dickfoster]

My point is that Dish IS passing along the costs to consumers, in this case ME. And by blocking the local ABC affiliate, they are not delivering the service for which I've contracted and for which I'm being charged. That is why they are refunding the local channel fee until all local broadcast affiliates are once again included in the Dish feed.



It would be nice to live in a simple world, but we do not. Dish and DirecTV charge their customers for local channels, and if they are redistributing local content for which they have no license or agreement to use, that is theft of intellectual property, same as with Internet pirates and music/movies. Unlike Dish/DirecTV, when I receive a broadcast signal, I do not redistribute it for profit. That's the difference that your argument does not recognize.

The airwaves are PUBLIC property and as such are not IP. The broadcasters are licensed and granted exclusive use of public bandwidth for limited periods of time which they use to make money by charging for advertizing. They are not only trying to cheat us the consumer as members of the public but also their advertisers who pay them for exposure. There are no additional costs to them so there should be no charges to us, period. However it does cost Dish and other providers in both equipment and bandwidth to receive then redistribute that content over their networks. All of the additional costs are borne by them so why should the broadcasters profit? The simple answer is they shouldn't. I won't takes Dish's side in many issues but I will on this one. If you see it the way you do then you and everyone else should be charged to listen to broadcast radio too.