DirecTV Rant

[fleming442]

Those MF'ers!!!!!! I've been with them for 15 years and this is how they treat their customers, peep this:
About a week ago, my box in the bedroom took a sh*t. I call them up to order a new box, and I get some "Good news! You get a free upgrade!" schpiel, okay, whatever, send me a new box. Next day, box starts working again. Perfect! New box arrives...... in 2 boxes. WTF is this? I set them aside as my old box is still working. I get an email saying that my old box needs to be returned by 7/22. Whatever, I'll get to it.
Then, today, I go to flip the news on while I'm fixing dinner and nothing but an error message. WTF? I still got 4 days to return a box and I paid the bill last month. Error message says to log on to the website. I tried several times and couldn't remember the user name or password because, who needs it? You gonna heist my TV account? So, I call the 800 number. An hour and a half later:
3 out of 4 boxes came back up.
My local channels switched markets (was Baltimore, now DC) and they're telling me that I can't have them back after 15 fvcking years.
My channel package changed (lost most sports and news channels)
The "new" box doesn't like the LNB on my dish, so it doesn't work. Plus, it's one of those Genie systems; I guess that's what the 2nd package was.
I got the old box back up in the bedroom and hung up the phone.
Round 2 tomorrow. I live in the sticks, Cumcast isn't on my road and won't come up, no broadband internet for streaming, and OTA or Dish Netdicks are the only other options. I don't know if I can slide OTA only past the wife. FAHK, I HATE THOSE MF'ERS!!!!!!

 

[ssn696]

$100 antenna, 50 feet of coax, $40 signal amplifier, and I got 23 channels from 100 miles away. Just replaced the antenna after 5 years, because my tree ate some times off of it. Give it some thought.

 

[xylorex]

How about cell phone service? you can get unlimited cellular data plans for $50/month, use that as hotspot.

slingtv can be had for $20 or $25/month... just a thought.

i've been looking real hard at this for a house of mine that i dont live at. damn cable company keeps going up on price. i have a cryto mining rig, security system, and video camera system that are all connect to the internet. and my friends go there pretty often to get away from their wives/family, they use slingtv, netflix, etc.

if that damn internet goes up one more time, i'm buying a used cell phone and a $50 unlimited data cell phone plan.

 

[Ribbedroof]

Looked into dish for internet, 10gig monthly cap, yeah my kids would use that in a couple days,

It's shitty radio-based internet , Netflix and Youtube for us. Quit cable 20 years ago, was tired of them deciding when they would let me watch 10 year old content.

Had a brainstorm, thought hotspot. The coverage map literally loops a couple hundred yards away from us....we live at the bottom of a creek valley, surrounded by hills and trees.

 

[69hurstolds]

We've had DTV since its inception. At first you had to buy all your stuff, and they'd give you a card for programming. They got away from that because too many cards were being reprogrammed. 🤭 They made you have a telephone line to be able to get it because that's how they uploaded all the movies you rented and whatnot.

Now it's all rental stuff. Up until we both retired, we had the everything package. All the movies, the top teir whatever. Since then, we realized we didn't watch much of the movie channels, maybe West World on HBO, so we ditched all the movie channels and now we have a middle grade package. Still running off our old equipment prior to the Genie crap. With all the fees and stupid taxes and junk, it's about 1100-1200 per year just to watch TV. I do get MLB subscription though. That's kinda nice.

I hate having to deal with them at all. If anything goes wrong, they don't have a clue and always want to "upgrade" equipment. I said I'd only do it if they didn't jack me for any money. I think it's stupid to pay money to upgrade, and then you're only LEASING the equipment. WTF? Nope. Not gonna do it.

When the DTV boxes crap out, not sure what we'll do. Probably just live off the 24 local TV channels with the over the air antenna.

 

[Canon_Mutant]

And . . . we are back in "negotiations" which is really "they have not paid the required bribe yet" on a couple of local channels. Happens every year.

Now, I have HD over air for those channels so it is just an input flip and it is actually 1080 instead of 720 so that is not a huge deal. Just another pisser.

But, yeah, we are looking for options too. Went from $149 that was NOT supposed to be an introductory rate to now anywhere between $192 and $219 depending on how profits are going this month? It is not because of movies rented etc as we don't do that. I call and b*tch when I eventually get through and . . . they lower the bill back down which almost pisses me off worse.

Sling is live only [at least here] and we record damn near everything. But, other than a few t*tty channel shows like aforementioned Westworld, Homeland, that are likely both over, we don't do many movies. I watch Science, Discovery, Motortrend and surprisingly BBC America most of the time. Then there are those "sports" must haves.

So, where can I get an "a la carte" stew of that? I'll sign up tomorrow.

Sadly, in the sticks here, there are NO unlimited data plans for internet. We have 15GB which is about [what?] 6 shows?
We run out of data with just me bitching about why my cars ain't done this month . . . ??

Been told there is something in the works out here but not a lot of detail yet. LOWER THE BILL!

 

[TURNA]

Don't worry all these cable companies suck!

The longer you been with them the shitier they treat you.

 

[fleming442]

B.T. Dubs......... It's a full moon. Coincidence? 🤔 I think not!

$100 antenna, 50 feet of coax, $40 signal amplifier, and I got 23 channels from 100 miles away. Just replaced the antenna after 5 years, because my tree ate some times off of it. Give it some thought.

I have an antenna, and used it when I "couldn't get HD on DTV" because of my trees. I'm leaning heavily on pulling the DTV plug depending on how today goes.

How about cell phone service? you can get unlimited cellular data plans for $50/month, use that as hotspot

Got a link to this miracle service? I'm in the telecom industry on the high speed end of things, so I see what is connecting the towers. Most all have gone to fiber these days, but service speeds are still limited. Unless you're in a major metro, 5G ain't happening anytime soon, and most of the cheap carriers aren't fast enough to stream. Even so called "unlimited" plans are capped, and will slow down after the cap is hit.

Looked into dish for internet, 10gig monthly cap, yeah my kids would use that in a couple days,

It's shitty radio-based internet , Netflix and Youtube for us. Quit cable 20 years ago, was tired of them deciding when they would let me watch 10 year old content.

Had a brainstorm, thought hotspot. The coverage map literally loops a couple hundred yards away from us....we live at the bottom of a creek valley, surrounded by hills and trees.

The wife's work was paying for satellite internet for a few years. It was worse than the cell phone- intermittent and slow with the inevitable, dreaded data cap.

We've had DTV since its inception. At first you had to buy all your stuff, and they'd give you a card for programming. They got away from that because too many cards were being reprogrammed. 🤭 They made you have a telephone line to be able to get it because that's how they uploaded all the movies you rented and whatnot.

Now it's all rental stuff.

I hate having to deal with them at all. If anything goes wrong, they don't have a clue and always want to "upgrade" equipment. I said I'd only do it if they didn't jack me for any money. I think it's stupid to pay money to upgrade, and then you're only LEASING the equipment. WTF? Nope. Not gonna do it.

When the DTV boxes crap out, not sure what we'll do. Probably just live off the 24 local TV channels with the over the air antenna.

This is my EXACT situation at the moment!

And . . . we are back in "negotiations" which is really "they have not paid the required bribe yet" on a couple of local channels. Happens every year.

Now, I have HD over air for those channels so it is just an input flip and it is actually 1080 instead of 720 so that is not a huge deal. Just another pisser.

But, yeah, we are looking for options too. Went from $149 that was NOT supposed to be an introductory rate to now anywhere between $192 and $219 depending on how profits are going this month? It is not because of movies rented etc as we don't do that. I call and b*tch when I eventually get through and . . . they lower the bill back down which almost pisses me off worse.

Sling is live only [at least here] and we record damn near everything. But, other than a few t*tty channel shows like aforementioned Westworld, Homeland, that are likely both over, we don't do many movies. I watch Science, Discovery, Motortrend and surprisingly BBC America most of the time. Then there are those "sports" must haves.

So, where can I get an "a la carte" stew of that? I'll sign up tomorrow.

Sadly, in the sticks here, there are NO unlimited data plans for internet. We have 15GB which is about [what?] 6 shows?
We run out of data with just me bitching about why my cars ain't done this month . . . ??

Been told there is something in the works out here but not a lot of detail yet. LOWER THE BILL!

I think it's a conspiracy against Olds guys!!!!!

I had the magnet of my satellite guy on the fridge; gonna give him a call and see what he says. As usual, I'll end up paying him to fix it because their "technicians" are W O R T H L E S S! Gonna call Customer Service and see how far I can get, too.
All these companies do the same sh*t: you make one call with a simple question or something simple like order replacement equipment, and they fvck your whole damned account up. I would LOVE to know how that happens. The 5 or 6 "technicians" in India I was talking to last night all acted like they couldn't see my old equipment. In order to get service, each receiver has an ESN and an access card with a chip number. I'm in the communcations field; I know all that sh*t's on record- it doesn't magically disappear!.

 

[joesregalproject]

We've had Verizon FiOS for 10 years at least. We switched to DirecTV once about 5 years ago because on paper we got the same things for less money. Well the service sucked, the TV glitched all the time, and after 6 months DirecTV sent a letter that basically gave a roundabout way of saying "Oh hey, you know how we were able to undercut Verizon and lower your TV bill awhile ago? Yeah, well things have changed and now we actually have to charge you 1.5x what Verizon did. Sorry! Oh and here's a list of channels you won't be getting anymore! Thanks for being a DirecTV customer!" We took that stupid dish off the side of the house and went right back to Verizon.

 

[xylorex]

fleming, decent streaming could be had at 300 kB/sec... its not 4k but it'll do, and much less cost. 4G cell service is between 500 kB/sec and 1.2 MB/sec according to a quick google search....

i had a crappy 300kB/sec DSL service up until 2 years ago, i could watch netflix and stream whatever...