Dish Network

[Country Geek]

There is an article in today's WSJ about Dish and Fox.

Just remember when reading a WSJ article that involves FOX, that they are owned by the same company.

The head of Dish is playing hardball with a couple of Fox channels to get them to lower their prices.

This is FOX spin. Dish was willing to pay for the FOX news channels that were pulled, but FOX wanted to bundle unrelated and expensive sports channels with it, and Dish wasn't willing to go along with that. Remember, FOX Sports in the last few years has signed multibillion dollar rights contracts with the PAC Ten and the Big Ten, and is trying to recoup that cost by forcing expensive sports channels onto the basic tiers of satellite and cable companies.

The CEO is trying to hold subscription costs to under $100 a month, surprised they have not gone over that amount all ready, so he is going for a lower price from the channels in question. The Fox channels say that other providers are paying the same amount but the article makes the point that many of the other providers are trying to merge with various companies and are not in a position to fight the current rate.

Plus the CEO in question, Charlie Ergen, is one of the most hardball players in the pay TV market. Also with his employees, Dish often ranks high on "worth company to work for" lists.

Btw since you're in the RTP area of NC, if you have Dish you'll know that our local CBS and Fox (not news but entertainment) affiliates are also currently off Dish. Their owner, Capitol Broadcasting, is a realtively small player so I don't see them leveraging Dish for more money. Plus since Dish is a relatively niche player around here (Time Warner is the 800 lb gorilla) I don't see Capitol knuckling under either if they've decided to make their stand here. So the channels could be off for a while, much to my wife's annoyance. I checked our DVR schedule and 7 of the top 10 timers are CBS shows.

 

[LD1]

Dish often ranks high on "worth company to work for" lists.

Not sure I put much stock in any of them type of lists.

I work for just such a company. Top 100 places to work voted for by the employees or something.

 

[farmer2009]

Not sure I put much stock in any of them type of lists. I work for just such a company. Top 100 places to work voted for by the employees or something.

Use to work for a company that was trying to get on one of those lists. They were selective on who received the survey. Only the ones that they thought would give them high marks got a survey. So yea I wouldn't read much into that either.

 

[RAYJAY]

i they pulled your local CBS, they should be able to give you the national CBS

 

[cmore]

More power to Dish Network.

I miss fox but don't watch ANY sports and don't wish to pay for any. Don't like the idea of having to pay for even more sport channels that I don't watch or want.

Sent emails to Dish and Fox stating the same thoughts.

 

[kidr]

It seems to me that if you contract for certain channels and then the provider cancels those channels, then they broke the contract and you should be able to cancel them. There ottabealaw.

 

[Oaktree]

I'm on my THIRD satellite Internet provider, and believe me, if you have ANY other alternative, you DO NOT want satellite Internet. The biggest problem is the data cap, which in my case is 10Gb/month for which I pay about $65. A single movie can use most of a Gb, so it's very easy to us all 10Gb in just a few days if I'm not careful.

I didn't even know there were 3 satellite internet providers. Other than Wildblue/Excede and Hughes net, who else is thre?
Until TWC came thru here a couple years ago I had Wildblue. We never even came close to our data cap (mostly just used it for email, web surfing, etc. No streams). The biggest drawbacks I saw was the high latency and the fact that every time there was a storm we lost connectivity. :thumbdown: Wildblue has since changed their name to Excede and offers much higher speeds than what we got (lucky to get much more than 300k on a good day), but unless the laws of physics change, the latency problem is not gonna go away. Pretty much makes it useless for remote access programs or VOIP.

Agree that satellite is a poor choice unless you have no other options.

 

[k0ua]

Same here, Charter was a constant nightmare with very poor service, we dropped it for satellite years ago and wouldn't go back at least in this area, very old infrastructure.

Interesting. here we have Suddenlink, and I really can't complain. We have had very few outages in 10 years, and they fixed them very quickly. Usually some idiot in a car taking out a pole. Service response is very good. This year we dropped our land line phone lines and went with Suddenlink for them too. Nothing like putting all our eggs in one basket. But so far so good. We have our cell phones for backup!

 

[BKBrown]

Did not read the entire thread - you might want to find out about local channels for local news and weather. We could not get local channels on Direct, but could get them on Dish.

 

[TripleR]

Interesting. here we have Suddenlink, and I really can't complain. We have had very few outages in 10 years, and they fixed them very quickly. Usually some idiot in a car taking out a pole. Service response is very good. This year we dropped our land line phone lines and went with Suddenlink for them too. Nothing like putting all our eggs in one basket. But so far so good. We have our cell phones for backup!

James, you're lucky to have choices, down here it's pretty much Charter only if you want cable and even where available in the small towns around me, many people opt for satellite for reliability. We use to have cable out here as the main line went by our house, but the tower was moved and so few people used it, they stopped maintaining or line.

We get no cell reception at my house or even local antennae reception, so it's satellite or nothing.

 

[Bird]

Interesting. here we have Suddenlink, and I really can't complain. We have had very few outages in 10 years, and they fixed them very quickly. Usually some idiot in a car taking out a pole. Service response is very good. This year we dropped our land line phone lines and went with Suddenlink for them too. Nothing like putting all our eggs in one basket. But so far so good. We have our cell phones for backup!

Daughter and her family recently moved to Jarrell, TX, and now have Suddenlink, so they hope it's good.

 

[k0ua]

I guess we indeed are fortunate. I really cant complain about any of the communications companies around here. The only reason we dropped the land line service was just monthly cost. Suddenlink was so much cheaper than the local phone company. The local phone companies service was great, but it was just the dollars. The Verizon cell service is very good here also since about 10 years ago they put up a nearby tower. I can get a couple of bars even down in my basement. I can get over 30Mbs of download speed from the phone, but try to keep any serious data usage over on the wi-fi using Suddenlink. Their data service is running just under 23Mbs and over 5 up but I am paying for 15Mbs. So again I can't complain. I do realize many of you here have a lot less choices and a lot less service for the same or even more money per month.

 

[Country Geek]

I guess we indeed are fortunate. I really cant complain about any of the communications companies around here. The only reason we dropped the land line service was just monthly cost. Suddenlink was so much cheaper than the local phone company. The local phone companies service was great, but it was just the dollars. The Verizon cell service is very good here also since about 10 years ago they put up a nearby tower. I can get a couple of bars even down in my basement. I can get over 30Mbs of download speed from the phone, but try to keep any serious data usage over on the wi-fi using Suddenlink. Their data service is running just under 23Mbs and over 5 up but I am paying for 15Mbs. So again I can't complain. I do realize many of you here have a lot less choices and a lot less service for the same or even more money per month.

Wow you do have it made. I was doing cartwheels yesterday when I learned I could upgrade my 5Mbs DSL to 10 Mbs!

 

[k0ua]

Wow you do have it made. I was doing cartwheels yesterday when I learned I could upgrade my 5Mbs DSL to 10 Mbs!

What is interesting is that when we moved in here in 2002, dialup at 28.8 was the best you get get for internet service, no DSL, no cable TV or data, and cell service was a stand on the porch, and hold the phone just right and you might get a bar!. But in a couple of years it all changed.

 

[Country Geek]

i they pulled your local CBS, they should be able to give you the national CBS

I tried that. They say they can't. I might try again tomorrow because it's been my experience that weekend and evending calls go to India script-readers, but calls during business hours are answered in the US and they seem to be able to get more done.

Upon further research I found that DISH no longer has distant locals or national feeds, period. They were forced to remove them by the new satellite law (STELA) that passed thus year. RV guys are pretty upset over it and complaining on multiple forums.

So it's get your locals or get nothing. The only way to get other locals is to change your service address but since locals are on spot beam sats you likely can't get them from other areas.