Dish Price Hikes

[andyherman]

Just got my "new" bill from Dish - WOW! Monthly service "America's top 200" w/locals went from $75.00 to $109.00+! More than a 45% increase. No wonder more and more people are leaving these services.

Sure glad I didn't buy that new Dish satellite antenna.

I just canceled the Dish service.

[Russ Abbey]

Yup, we left over a year ago now due to them messing with the price of the same service. Put up an antenna here at the house and found a FREE program to tape the over the air shows we do watch. Much nicer than spending over $100 for a lot of channels we never watch. Mostly the big 4 or 5 local stations we have that I watch are good to go. PBS, CBS, NBC, ABC are the ones we do watch.
Happy over the air FREE TV is something I have had for years, just forgot to use it.

73
Russ Abbey, N4MAV

[Rich W]

For the previous 3 years our cable bill has gone up $15-20 every year. Last year it reached $210, I had enough and cut the cord, keeping only Internet for $70 a month. I bought the Tivo Roamio OTA VOX DVR. This was expensive, $400, but it's coming up on a year now and I've saved $100/month, so the Tivo has more than paid for itself.

Tivo Roamio - $400 (with [box] lifetime channel info for the DVR, no monthly fees)

Antenna in the attic - $30
Cable run from the antenna to the family room - $25 (cost of wire)

Monthly cost:
Internet - $70
Sling TV - $30 (includes DVR capability)

The Tivo records up to 4 programs at once, has 1TB of space and some nice features, like commercial skip (on some but not all programs, you can still just fast forward) and voice (VOX) commands. Sling TV requires a steaming device, I already had a Roku, so no additional expense. The Tivo can also stream some apps, like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and others, but not Sling TV. (Disagreement between the 2 companies)

We have a perfect picture for all local TV stations and can record them, all the cable shows we like (via Sling TV) and can record those, paying $110/month less than before.

When we travel in the AS I just use the AS antenna, which pulls in channels from a long way away. If we get bored with local channels I have ripped DVDs into an external (3TB) drive and use a media player to play them on the TV.

[BigSxyWhtGuy]

Man... we ditched our cable bill years ago. Probably been 12 years since we had one of those bills. Try Netflix for $10/month or just using your cell phone to tether to a TV?

[kscherzi]

Philo TV, streaming, has many of the same basic dish channels for $16 a month.

[GMFL]

We cut ours off about 6 months ago. Netflix now and that’s probably the reason for the spike in my Forum present. Haha

[andyherman]

Unfortunately, I'm really out in the boonies and there are no good options (about 25 miles south of the Canadian border here). My only real contact with the "outside" world is via my cell and even with AT&T's "unlimited" plan there's a 22GB throttling threshold. I had no real issues with Dish until this latest price heist. I'm looking to see if I can get fiber out here, but it's a real long shot. OTA is out of the question since the nearest station is 75 miles away and blocked by the mountains.



Connecting Netflix, Hulu, Sling, or any of those alternatives via my cell phone won't cut it because of the data limitations. I did have T-Mobile before but they have NO SERVICE here and you end up roaming on AT&T, which imposes a 250MB data limit. AT&T actually has a better signal than Verizon, which is my company cell provider.

[BigSxyWhtGuy]

Originally Posted by andyherman

Unfortunately, I'm really out in the boonies and there are no good options (about 25 miles south of the Canadian border here). My only real contact with the "outside" world is via my cell and even with AT&T's "unlimited" plan there's a 22GB throttling threshold. I had no real issues with Dish until this latest price heist. I'm looking to see if I can get fiber out here, but it's a real long shot. OTA is out of the question since the nearest station is 75 miles away and blocked by the mountains.



Connecting Netflix, Hulu, Sling, or any of those alternatives via my cell phone won't cut it because of the data limitations. I did have T-Mobile before but they have NO SERVICE here and you end up roaming on AT&T, which imposes a 250MB data limit. AT&T actually has a better signal than Verizon, which is my company cell provider.

Verizon unlimited? True unlimited with zero throttling of speeds. I’m pretty sure there is a customer retention department you can talk to for cable. It’s their job to keep you at all costs, even if it means lowering your bill or free HBO. Just need to call them and convince them that you are ready to cancel.... if they call your bluff, hang up and call back to get the next person.

[kscherzi]

The other option is to sign up for Direct TV and get the new customer promotion rate. Cancel at the end of the promotional period and by then you'll probably become a new customer in the eyes of Dish, and get that rate with them.

[Rich W]

Originally Posted by andyherman

Unfortunately, I'm really out in the boonies and there are no good options (about 25 miles south of the Canadian border here).

You must not be in La Pine anymore, like your tag says. That's more than 25 miles to Canada.


Yeah, that's a downside to being in the boonies, you're cut off from the outside world. Satellite is pretty much your only choice. You'll have to pay the piper. All the cable and satellite services are going up. The Internet streaming services will eventually follow suit, I'm sure. It's just a matter of time.

[Rich W]

Originally Posted by BigSxyWhtGuy

Man... we ditched our cable bill years ago. Probably been 12 years since we had one of those bills. Try Netflix for $10/month or just using your cell phone to tether to a TV?

Uh.... no

We hope you have been enjoying your Netflix membership. We are writing to let you know about an upcoming change.
Your monthly price is increasing to $12.99 on Saturday, April 27th 2019. Why? We’re hard at work improving Netflix so that you can have even more great TV shows and movies to enjoy.
Here’s to watching what you want, when you want, where you want.

[Lumatic]

Living and traveling out west over the air signals are limited in a lot of areas. We have dish at home and a Dish Tailgater for TV on the road. Anybody have an alternative?

[BigSxyWhtGuy]

Originally Posted by richw46

Uh.... no

We hope you have been enjoying your Netflix membership. We are writing to let you know about an upcoming change.
Your monthly price is increasing to $12.99 on Saturday, April 27th 2019. Why? We’re hard at work improving Netflix so that you can have even more great TV shows and movies to enjoy.
Here’s to watching what you want, when you want, where you want.

Oh, you’re on the multiple TV/device plan? We dropped to bare minimum at 8.99. We are either using our phone or pushing to one TV in the AS.

Stick it to the man! Drop down your plan. It’s what all the cool millennials are doing

[azflycaster]

Originally Posted by Lumatic

Living and traveling out west over the air signals are limited in a lot of areas. We have dish at home and a Dish Tailgater for TV on the road. Anybody have an alternative?

We have the same setup and it has served s well. The service is not available in Canada, but you can fudge a little if you are close to the US border. In Alaska the satellites are too low on the horizon for a reliable signal. I was able to suspend my service last year while traveling out of the country.

[Rich W]

Originally Posted by BigSxyWhtGuy

Oh, you’re on the multiple TV/device plan? We dropped to bare minimum at 8.99. We are either using our phone or pushing to one TV in the AS.

Stick it to the man! Drop down your plan. It’s what all the cool millennials are doing

For the bare-bones plan you get only standard definition. At the house, where we are most of the time, I have a 70" 4K television. I couldn't stand to watch SD on that. I also have 2 other TVs that have a Roku and sometimes watch Netflix on one of those; a 35" 1080P and a 25" tube TV.


I'll have to pay the piper, it' jumped $2, I'm worth it.

[Mollysdad]

I had Direct TV for years and they finally got way too expensive for what I was using. It's what they do.
Now I have cable, and to be honest, I'd cut the cable in an instant if I could find a package I liked.
Stations used to have 4 commercials in a block by agreement, now they have as many as 12 in a mid break. I can't stand it, and for this I'm paying $100+???

[Rich W]

Originally Posted by Mollysdad

I had Direct TV for years and they finally got way too expensive for what I was using. It's what they do.
Now I have cable, and to be honest, I'd cut the cable in an instant if I could find a package I liked.
Stations used to have 4 commercials in a block by agreement, now they have as many as 12 in a mid break. I can't stand it, and for this I'm paying $100+???

I use a DVR (TWC DVR before, Tivo DVR now) and record everything. I either use the Tivo commercial skip button (not available on every program) to jump ahead to the continued program or just use the fast forward. On some of the Roku apps you can press the right arrow to skip ahead 30 seconds with one push. In a 1 hour program there's 20 minutes of commercials.



Tivo DVR, Roku, Sling TV, antenna in the attic and basic Internet. We pay $100 a month, after we paid for the Tivo last year.

[jwpaquette]

Originally Posted by richw46

You must not be in La Pine anymore, like your tag says. That's more than 25 miles to Canada.


Yeah, that's a downside to being in the boonies, you're cut off from the outside world. Satellite is pretty much your only choice. You'll have to pay the piper. All the cable and satellite services are going up. The Internet streaming services will eventually follow suit, I'm sure. It's just a matter of time.

We found cell, WiFi and / or OTA HD signals are just too inconsistent for our taste and wants so we stick with Dish and turn it on and off based on our travel schedule. Works like a champ and we chalk the price up to the cost of doing business.

[andyherman]

I purchased some land in NE WA state and spent the winter up here.

Pend Oreille county has fiber-optic cable, but eight now the PUD only serves the south part of the county (sure doesn't seem fair to me, but???). There's a fiber cable that runs on the other side of the road from my property but I need to see if I can get their service. If I can, I'll just get internet service and use streaming apps.

I started with DirecTV when they first came out - $29.99/month! Back then you had to buy your receiver (and the dish). The first one I got was SD only. Then they came out with HD and I bought a new Samsung receiver and satellite dish - $400.00.

I had DirecTV for years and when I sold my house in Spokane I had them "pause" the service. After I bought my house in TX, I called DirecTV to get the service re-established and they immediately said I would need to get new receivers (I had/have four DirecTV receivers). On top of that, I had to "rent" the dam new receiver from them. I was pissed! I decided to go with Dish but their installer screwed up the installation. On the connection into the wall, the wire wasn't long enough and I kept losing the signal. I called them 5-6 times and after a year dumped them (when the guy from DIsh came out to "uninstall everything he showed me the problem but it was already too late and I went back to DirecTV - as much as I was pissed at them.

When the DirecTV installer came to install the new setup I told him they had told me I couldn't use my old receivers anymore and he said that wasn't true. He hooked up one of my old receivers and I did get DirecTV service. Only thing is it was HD. Eventually, after another price hike I dumped DirecTV and switched to Verizon FIOS. It was actually great @ $110.00/month for their premium service (no HBO/Showtime) and also included unlimited internet.

The US is like a third world country when it comes to Internet, phone, and TV service - even worse when it comes to pricing. Japan is going to 8K. Their internet is 1Gbps download and the prices range from @ $35.00- $50.00/month! Europe is a little more expensive, but still much less than in the US -

https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-livin...=33&region=150

[Silvertwinkie]

I cut the cord back in 2010 for basically the same reasons as most. My threshold was when it went over $75/mo, which it did after only a few years of having Dish. Before that I had standard cable, DirecTV before finally moving to Dish.


I recently switched back to AT&T for cell service. If you are in a major lifetime promo (as long as I keep AT&T cell service) that for about $75/mo, I get unlimited talk, text and data, with priority data in congested areas. Nothing big right? However, they provide free AT&T home Internet up to $50/mo. For me that equals 45mbs home Internet.


I know some might say that cable has faster speeds for home Internet, and that may be true, but is somewhat misleading, because cable internet shares the backbone, and so you see a lot of highs and lows depending on what is going on in the "hood". uVerse is DSL on steroids and has very consistent speeds, but again, I'm in the Chicago/Metro area, your results can and will vary...and may not be available in your area.


So for me, free Internet, Netflix, YouTube live (hate the Hulu interface) and over the air antenna. Total cost $125 (cell, Netflix and YT Live TV).