Digging Dish!

At the end of last year I was so disgusted with Consolidated Communications and their third rate cable TV I decided to give DirecTV a try.  I had such high hopes, and frankly anything would have been an upgrade over Consolidated.  Their service was (and still is) so atrocious it was hard to imagine how it could get worse.  A massive lag when using the remote, the ability to only record one channel at a time.  Low def looked like 240 most of the time.  Their pay for view movies looked like they were pirated with a camcorder.  Their HD was just a fucking joke with pixelation and interference so often, I'd argue that even calling it high definition would be a fraudulent claim.

To their credit Consolidated did try repeatedly to make me happy and ended up bribing me with discounts and credits, which made the pain of paying them a little easier to take.  But I was still very disappointed when DirecTV came out and told me that they just couldn't quite see their satellite from my balcony, and therefore were unable to offer service.

Time passed, I almost gave up on having satellite TV, especially since the DirecTV installation guys thought that the Dish satellite I would need to use was only standard definition.

At the end of February I was still hating Consolidated service.  Their DVR acted like an abusive drunk step parent, that seemed to simply refuse to record shows out of spite.  The final straw came when I paid $4.99 to watch a movie, and the image quality looked like an animated GIF file.  It was beyond pathetic.  So I thought I may as well try calling Dish.

Their eager and polite salesman informed me that they had more satellites in the sky than DirecTV and so there was a much better chance of things working out.  I didn't get my hopes up too much, and remained a little skeptical.

They were able to schedule installation the following day, something DirecTV had been unable to do.  And unlike DirecTV the installation guy was both early (he called first for permission) and local (the DirecTV guys were from over 1,000 miles away).  From the start he was gung-ho about being able to do the installation, and sure enough in an hour or so I was set up.

To say that Dish is about six years or so ahead of Consolidated would be an understatement rather than an exaggeration.  I've had the service just under 48 hours, but already I am totally sold.  It's really quite amazing.

I only needed service in the main room, with a secondary service in the master bedroom.  As a result, Dish only needed to install one controller box.  This box feeds both TVs, the primary big screen in glorious HD which is easily 50% better than Consolidated could deliver on their best day.  I'd say every channel I watch is in HD too, including BBC America.

The half terabyte DVR works incredibly well, recording up to two shows at a time, which is far more industry standard than Consolidated's one.  Not only that I can play back DVR shows in the bedroom now, even though the bedroom TV is SD, and the show was recorded in HD.  I can schedule recordings from either room or even my laptop, desktop or iPhone.

Consolidated required two boxes, and they didn't talk to each other, so if I recorded a show in the bedroom, it had to be watched in the bedroom.  I guess they were going old school and trying to remind me of a VCR.  Certainly their picture quality did.


Dish are very good at keeping me informed, even downloading a welcome to Dish program onto my DVR over night.  They've also thanked me for joining their email list, and signing up for paperless billing by sending me five free pay for view movie coupons; and shockingly I can watch them in HD, what a concept.

So far I could not be more impressed.  It is everything I hoped it would be and more.  Slick customer service, delivering more than I expected, an outstanding service that works flawlessly so far.  Did I mention it is CHEAPER than Consolidated too?

I guess if I had to whine, the box they brought me was clearly refurbished, as a scratch had been repaired on the top of it.  Personally, I'd have expected new, as a new customer.  Although that hasn't affected performance thus far.  The box runs a bit hot, is supposedly sensitive to being moved around, and they recommend against putting other components on top of or below it.  They had a better box available; one that would allow you to watch TV from anywhere in the world via the Internet, but it would have cost $199, which I am not prepared to pay for right now.

Frankly, my gripes are especially nit picky.  So far so good, and I am so glad to be taking my antiquated shitty Consolidated boxes back to their office on Friday and dumping them on the counter.  Dish must be laughing out loud at their competition, at least where I live, because the only customers they are going to retain are people who just don't know how much better the alternative is.  I'm kicking myself that I didn't do this when I moved in last year.

So thank you Dish.  You're wonderful!  Please don't ever get shitty and outdated like Consolidated!

Dumping Cable

When I lived in Tennessee I had Charter cable, and I very much hated it.  They had a limited selection of HD programming, an unreliable pay for view movies service, shoddy customer service and various Internet issues that for some reason created some issues with Call of Duty that could never be resolved.

Upon moving to Texas I thought that my proximity to Houston would afford me a state of the art system and waited excitedly for the Consolidated truck to show up and install my service.

To say that I have been disappointed would be a massive understatement.  The remote acted like it was drunk.  The DVR seems to be determined to find an excuse to not record my favorite shows.  There were no HD movies on demand or on pay for view.  The customer service was closed at weekends, and ineffective the rest of the time.  While they got Internet right (albeit very expensive for the speed they offer), they fucked up just about everything else.

The first cable box they gave me would freeze all the time requiring a reboot that could take up to twenty minutes (yes, that's 20 minutes).  All in all they seemed like a phone company that was tinkering with the notion of becoming a cable company.  But instead of getting paid to beta test their buggy and substandard product, I was paying them, and paying them far too much.

So this week, I called them up and gave them their marching orders.  I retained their Internet service as it is about the only option around here.  But I told them to remove cable TV from my bill and promised to return their unspeakably poor boxes to their headquarters.

The replacement I have chosen is Direct TV, in addition to my Netflix account (which I have to say was a wonderful investment - it's little surprise they single-handedly annihilated Blockbuster).

I'm getting the second most expensive package, HD, DVR, HBO, Showtime, movies on demand, insurance against anything getting messed up, and it's going to run about $60 a month.  This in turn is going to save me a good $50 a month over what cable was costing me (including the Internet).

Only time will tell if this was a good move.  But honestly I can't imagine they could be offering a worse service than Consolidated, and retain 50 million subscribers.  Fingers crossed, the install is next weekend, and I'm excited to see the results.

Consolidated Communications

So I called Consolidated Communications, my pitiful cable company, because they owe me a massive rebate on their crappy and over-priced service.  I simply have not had time to reach them yet, due to my busy work schedule.

Here was my route to wonderful customer service:

Thank you for calling Consolidated Communications...
For English, press one...
To establish new service press one...
For billing, press two...
For customer service press three...
Please note that your call may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance purposes.  Please have your customer number and PIN available.  You will find this information on the top of your bill.
Please enter your ten digit customer number followed by the pound key.
That response is not valid.
Please enter your ten digit customer number followed by the pound key.
That response is not valid.
For business, press one.
For residential, press two.
Thank you for calling residential customer service.  Unfortunately, we are a bunch of lazy fucktards that don't open at the weekend.  After all, why the fuck would you want customer service on Saturday?  It's not like you have a job, I bet you spend your fucking welfare on this $140 cable service don't you?  Well you fat couch potato loser, why don't you call back when it is convenient to us, which is 8am to 5pm Monday to Friday, and never on the fucking weekend.  Get it?  We hope you fucking die, goodbye.

Now I admit, I made up the bit in italics, but the rest is exactly what happened.  I am tasked with punching in a bunch of random buttons on my phone for five minutes, only to be told that these bastards don't even open at the weekend.  Call me crazy, but why not mention that at the beginning of the call?  Offer me the choice of using the automated service or calling back during business hours.  Isn't this common sense?  And seriously, who doesn't provide customer service on the very days most Americans get off work?

Maybe next time we move, we'll find a decent cable company.  I'm thinking of going Dish...