We are now DISH networkers

We're making the switch from Comcast for our TV service over to DISH network. They will install us this coming Tuesday.

We've been pissed at Comcast for awhile now, and have been surveying the market out there.

DIRECT TV, the other satellite system out there, is really heavy on the sports packages. Indeed, their current offer is contingent upon you purchasing the NFL Sunday Ticket, which is pretty absurd to me, as I have not watched an NFL, or college, or even flag-football game in years and years.

Bottom line: we will have four TV's hooked up to DISH, with their Ultimate HD package, so we will be paying about $5 more per month for DISH as we were with Comcast, but getting quite a few more channels, and having two more TVs than before hooked up to the system.

Ah, more channels. Now THAT'S a mixed blessing. We don't watch half the channels on Comcast right now, and soon we'll have even more channels we don't watch. But none of the TV systems out there make it easy to purchase channels a la carte. I would much PREFER to pay for ONLY those channels that I actually would want to watch. But no....all or nothing.

The DISH salesdude told me that by getting only two special boxes, those two boxes can control four TV's. So you pay for only two boxes instead of four. The guy tells me, "We're always looking for ways to save our customers money." Oh, really!?? Then how about true a la carte? Well, we don't really offer that. Yet.

Allegedly, those two boxes transmit radio frequencies to control the other two TV's. And how do the other two TV's receive that wireless signal? He could not answer that. Finally he said the Installer will set up the other two TV's to receive the wireless signal. That's still a big question mark. A wireless device needs to have some kind of wireless card or receiver inside it to receive the wireless signal, at least according to my old-school mind. We'll see...

We'll finally get Free Speech TV and Link TV, two channels that Comcast has refused to carry. Looking forward to that. And we'll now get Showtime in place of Cinemax. Looking forward to watching the "Weed" programs too.

And it will be interesting to see what happens when we get our first rainstorm. Will we lose the signal? Some DISH friends say yes, you will, others have said no, you won't.

One thing I just discovered, after agreeing to install DISH, is that, if you only have high-speed internet with Comcast (and don't also have TV or their phone service), Comcast bumps up the rate by about $15/month. Bastards. So, we might actually KEEP Comcast for TV, but cut it down to only Basic Service, so that we can pay less for the internet. The DISH salesdude said that the coax wire could carry BOTH the DISH signal AND the Comcast signal, which I find hard to believe, but I'll check that with the Installer.

If I could just go to AT&T's U-Verse system, I could actually save some real money. Don't get me started on AT&T again. I have discovered that the U-Verse product does not carry FSTV or LinkTV, so ..... You can't always get what you want.