Goodbye DirecTV, hello Time Warner?

[sdn10s]

You are correct. That's the deal I got and that's all I was charged. No commitment to Showtime is necessary. Installation was a snap.

[borghe]

I have nothing but love for DirecTV for the meantime.

My experience with the incompetence that is cable:

First, my mom's house. We get cable. All is good. We fall on fincancial troubles and let cable go. We stop getting billed for it but continue to receive it for free. I call them and tell them we are still receiving it and the tell me I'm not. They call back a year or so later, ask me if I want it. I tell them I've been receiving it for a year for free and they tell me I haven't been. I get DirecTV but still use the free cable signal for PIP and local channels (around 1998 or so). My mom eventually sells the house with the live cable line.

I move into an apartment reinstalling my dish. I call cable for a basic package for locals only. The guy comes out with a box. I tell him I don't need a box and he tells me I do. I hook the cable directly up to the TV and he literally doesn't know what to say. I get my first bill from them and I am being charged for satandard (not basic) cable with HBO. I call them to correct it. It takes 4 months before everything is finally worked out. A short time later DirecTV gets Milwaukee locals. TWC is gone yet again.

Finally my mom gets TWC into the apartment she moved to. She does it all on her own. Two years later I look at her bill and realize she has been paying $3/month more than digital cable for analog cable with fewer channels. I convert her to digital cable, but in the process have a CSR who "demands" she go with the $50/month package to get all sorts of limited time free stuff. My mom doesn't want it. Her first bill comes and she is charged for it anyway. Something tells me it will be a couple of months before it is resolved.

Ok.. whew. Now my experience with DirecTV:

I buy a dish and receiver back in 1998 and install it myself (what an experience :rolleyes:) I call up and get my service connected at 11pm at night (not kidding). It comes on immediately. The picture blows away what I had been used to on cable.

I move and get a new receiver. I called them, they walked me through changing cards, total time, 1 minute. Change my billing info, another minute. Got a second receiver. After hooking it up, from the time I dialed the numbers to the time I was watching a picture was less than 1 minute. Threw in two Tivos, no problem. Upgraded both of them to 106 hours each.

Move again. This time though they implement Mover's Connection. They tell me to leave everything except for my receivers behind, so I do. They will ship me new hardware and install it for free. I ask her if I can get an HD capable dish as I am planning to upgrade soon. She goes ahead with it. 2 days later I get an oval dish with Sat "C" connector. 2 days after that the installer is at my house at 8am. He installs the dish, runs two cables each to two rooms, runs two phone lines, installs the sat "C" LNB along with removing the in-dish multi-switch and setting it up in the basement. All for free.

Now yesterday I get a call from DirecTV saying they see I have an oval dish with Sat "C" connector and were wondering if I was interested in subscribing to this new HD package they have coming July 1st. I said I would be very interested so they setup my account and said starting on July 1st or possibly shortly before I should start getting ESPN-HD, Discovery HD, HDNet Movies, and HDNet which I should already be receiving.

Maybe now you can see why I am so pro-dish. Glad to hear things worked out for you as well Tom.

[gparris]

I am moving into an apartment and losing my DIRECTV service, and say, I don't completely evaporate the account and put it on their billing for keeping it open-will they allow a "Mover's Connection" in say, before the end of the year?  I already installed the DVRs and HD Cable boxes to get used to having them around so I can bring them to the apartment for hookup.

I, too, with 2 TIVOs and HDSat box and all the changeouts over the years since 1997, have, overall, enjoyed the DIRECTV experience.

The "spouse" hates the dish and doesn't understand it very well...until the TWC DVR gets a little complex or "times out" and of course these questions : " Why can't I get HDNET on TWC?" Followed by: "Why does channel 18  and Sci-Fi look so lousy?"

So I will miss DIRECTV until we are out of the apartment and back to the "normalcy" of a house again...but hope they still honor that Movers Connection, however delayed.

What do you think?