It's almost Comcast time
In just a few weeks, Comcast's swap with Time Warner here in Houston will be much more visible, as branding and billing will finally switch, and so will some service offerings (with more changes to come later).
I've had the standard-plus service from TWC for ages, but Comcast has already dropped a few channels from that lineup, and will probably screw around with it even more to try to get people to move to digital tiers of service.
I'm seriously considering a switch to Dish Network, which makes it pretty painless to do a two-room, HD/DVR deal. Anyone have any experiences (good or bad) to share re: Dish?
Posted by Kevin Whited @ 05/20/07 12:17 | Tech | Technorati
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We will be switching to HAL-PC's adsl service for broadband, and will likely try a satellite dish service for a while.
I have nothing good to say about COMCAST.
Posted by Royko @ 16:23 on 05/20/07
I tried satellite and HATED it. The equipment screwed up often and the weather had a dramatic effect on picture quality and service.
Posted by Jeff @ 16:30 on 05/20/07
The weather issue is the one thing that has held me back (well, that and inertia).
I'm not sure if I'll ditch Comcast internet or not. I may see how that goes. If I do ditch it, I'll probably go for Oplink (a good local DSL provider).
Posted by Kevin @ 18:36 on 05/20/07
We have had DirectTV for about six years and love it. Occasionally there is a weather hiccup when a thunderstorm comes through, but it never lasts longer than a couple of minutes and the interruptions are very infrequent.
Plus, customer service has been outstanding through three moves. We will never, ever go back to cable.
Posted by anne @ 21:44 on 05/20/07
I come from a DirecTV and used to take calls for DirecTV (including helping people with moves, which they really do make very easy) and I can endorse them without reservation. It generally took some pretty bad weather for my parents to lose service and most of the complaints I had were not from people who were having technical issues but rather from people whose services had been cut-off for non-payment.
Posted by R. Alex @ 23:10 on 05/21/07
Somewhat OT
I have TWC internet access currently (RR), and I had been told by more than one person that this Comcast swap would result in having to change email addresses. That didn't make any sense to me then and it still doesn't. I haven't heard anything from TWC about it. Has anyone else received any info on that?
Posted by The Dude @ 07:13 on 05/22/07
Dude: You will definitely be losing your email address.
Dwight Silverman posted about this recently on his techblog:
http://blogs.chron.com/tech...
I would suggest to everyone still using a rr.com email address that you might want to start migrating your critical email over to another email address now. I'm a huge fan of web-based email, of course, and think Gmail is the bomb. Plus if you are wedded to your desktop client (Outlook, Thunderbird, or the like), you can use it with Gmail (but why).
Posted by Kevin @ 09:52 on 05/22/07
I think after the Float Trip I'll definitely be scheduling Dish Network (which offers a better deal on the equipment I want).
My only real question for them will be if it can coexist with my cable internet. I understand the two-room box uses the coax cable to distribute signal to the second TV, but I've read that can be worked around. I guess I'll have to call them and ask before scheduling the service though.
Posted by Kevin @ 09:54 on 05/22/07
Thanks Kevin. I appreciate the info and I agree that Gmail is the bomb. With GBs of web storage space I have no reason to use it with Outlook, so "why" is a good question. As far as the rr.com address I was just hoping I could be lazy and do nothing. I always hope that and I'm almost always let down.
Posted by The Dude @ 12:20 on 05/22/07
I had DirecTV when I was in an apartment, and only the strongest of thunderstorms knocked it out. Never had any problem with their customer service people, either. And at the time, they offered a GREAT installation deal.
I've heard a number of worse things about Dish Network, but all secondhand, so I couldn't tell you for sure.
Where I am, I think TWC is still going to be running. We've been on TWC for a good while and no complaints to speak of. The only thing I miss is having the pop-up screen to check channel listings and see what's on... but that's only resulted in my watching less TV and doing other things, which is Not Necessarily A Bad Thing.
Posted by Mike @ 08:18 on 05/23/07
Count me as a positive vote for DirecTV. I have been using their DVR/HD service for several years now. They also have new sats coming on line this year... they promise to carry all national HD channels.
Posted by Chris Copeland @ 14:22 on 05/23/07
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