Ron Schenone

Dish Network Failures Good For Consumers

Posted by on Sep 29, 2008 | 4 Comments

Dish or Direct satellite TV, which is better? As with anything in life, it is in the eyes of the beholder. But recently Dish Network has experienced a loss of subscribers which could hinder the satellite company. Add to this the decision by AT&T to dump Dish and go with Direct TV starting January31, 2009, this could be good news for us consumers.

AT&T said Friday it will offer DirecTV satellite-TV services to its customers after its agreement with Dish Network expires on Jan. 31, 2009.

Most experts expected AT&T would go with rival DirecTV. Douglas County-based Dish said in July that AT&T had decided to end a five-year agreement to resell Dish services. The agreement was to expire on Dec. 31, but recently was extended a month.

Anytime you have  a company losing subscribers and also a large account like AT&T, it usually means that the company may offer more attractive packages and better equipment in the future. In seems that Dish has been falling behind also in the HD offerings. I noticed that Direct already has 150 HD channels and Dish is around 100 channels.

What do you think?

Comments welcome.

Source.

  • Don Naphen

    Hi Ron; well I’ve been a very satisfied DirectTV subscriber for almost a year now. Service has been flawless and not one storm-related outage! I was having a problem in getting the hd recvr to access some local hd programming, but that was resolved when they told me to shut all power off, wait a minute and then power up again. The recvr rebooted, reprogrammed itself and all was well again.

    I can see DISH going belly up if they lose such substantial numbers, as unlike cable, they can’t fall back on a monopoly customer base. Most cable outfits have unfettered reign in any given town, so their outlook is far better than DISH. I think the aggressive marketing that DirectTV has done in recent years is paying off big time. They are also gaining substantial numbers from the many dissatisfied cable customers who just got fed up with overpriced substandard service.

  • http://wp3.lockergnome.com/nexus/blade/ Ron Schenone

    Hi Don,
    Thanks for the information. I’m with Dish now, but when my contract expires I may give Direct TV a try.

    Regards, Ron

  • Anonymous

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  • Marc Erickson

    “right of passage” should be rite of passage.