since not having ESPN-U shows many misconceptions about satellite in sports talk, i figured id share my experiences having taken the plunge



i switched from twc and saved 25 a month, and gained l75 channels, plus sirius radio

i've lost signal once for 2 minutes since november

i don't have a land line so i have to pay 5 bucks a month extra.

cable went out at least once a month, Roadrunner once a week.

my internet isnt as fast as RR, but im cheap and i dont play games/ download much. you do have to sign a contract, but its portable so i can just give it to someone else if i move out of range i guess.
also save 25/month.



service is 10x better than TWC was.

guy said he would be here at 8am, got here at 7:45.

he had an awesome compass


i have one receiver, works on two tvs so you can watch separate shows at the same time, plus you can take the remote around the house so i spliced two rooms together and just use that remote.

ive got dish network.

no, i do not work for a satellite company/ clearwire



[Edited on March 13, 2007 at 10:53 PM. Reason : .]

3/13/2007 10:50:57 PM

cable owns when it comes to affordable HD

3/13/2007 10:56:00 PM

well like i said, im cheap. i aint gots no HD TV... ill wait till their around 700 bucks before i worry about all that.



[Edited on March 13, 2007 at 11:05 PM. Reason : d]

3/13/2007 10:58:17 PM

Comcast's on demand was out last Saturday night and I had to watch the history channel.

3/14/2007 7:42:48 AM

Quote :

"cable owns when it comes to affordable HD"

A UHF antennae owns when it comes to free less compressed HD.

Time warners HD quality is pretty much crap. I had their service for a year.

3/14/2007 7:46:11 AM

Quote :

"ill wait till their around 700 bucks "

its they're, dumbass

3/14/2007 9:47:35 AM

^You Tell HIM!!!!

But if you have HD, play games online, and download a lot of stuff....

Not so great.

3/14/2007 9:59:08 AM

ive got cable up here in wisconsin and it is far worse than twc ever was. price isnt super bad at 70ish for first 6 months, 100 afterwards, but the service is terrible. direct tv hd is around 60 a month for the first year at least so im highly considering doing that and DSL after my charter cable bill goes up.

att has a decent deal: landline, 3mbps dsl, dish network, and cingular phone for 120. thats not bad at all.

[Edited on March 14, 2007 at 10:51 AM. Reason : ps i gotmy 37" hd lcd for 800, you can get 32's for 500, so whats the wait]

3/14/2007 10:48:38 AM

i like clearwire so far

3/14/2007 9:17:14 PM

we are about to pick up clearwire at the office. but i couldnt beat 19.95/mo for RR at the house.

and yea Grace, you can get 37" HD LCD's for ~700 now, might be about that time. Hell I saw an HD 42" plasma a couple of weeks ago for $799 AR

3/15/2007 2:07:40 AM

direct tv had issues with the trees on my property. think it's worth trying dish network, or probably the same results?

i just hate time warner. i don't care if i even have to pay a little more.

3/15/2007 2:28:15 AM

Time warner cable goes out once a week (for extended time) if i'm lucky.
It freezes at least once a day at night, but sometime many times.

Internet is decent

However, once your year is over you get a big jump in price, and then every two months the bill goes up 3-5 dollars under the guise of we will provide you with better cable service and customer service.


Oh yeah and please get fucking ESPN-U being all of our games tend to be on it

[Edited on March 15, 2007 at 3:15 AM. Reason : .]

3/15/2007 3:14:55 AM

I put together a price comparison between TWC, Dish, and Direct. These are based on the recent price hikes by all 3 and set to include HD, DVR, as well as ESPNU. Im not using the promo price because you wont have that after X months.

TWC:
Digital Cable: $64.75
HD Tier: $6.95
Digital Sports Tier: $2.95
DVR Service: $7.95
TOTAL: $82.60

DISH:
America's Top 250: $52.99
DishHD: $20.00
DVR Service: $5.98
Locals: $5.00
TOTAL: $83.97
(free HD DVR to new customers)

DirecTV:
HD Plus: $69.99
(includes HD, DVR, and Local HD)
Sports Pack: $10.00
TOTAL: $79.99
(PLUS $199 for HD DVR equipment)

So really not much difference, plus you have to factor in the phone line/no phone line fee for satellite. Also, for me personally, I would like to stick with Roadrunner regardless (I have a QAM HD tuner in my computer, and if Im getting a TW signal I should still be able to capture unencrypted QAM) and of course RR is more expensive without cable. Also if you have premiums, both the sats seem to charge a LOT more for these than cable. So while I would like to make the move to satellite, Im not sold on the fact that it will be that much cheaper, if at all.

3/15/2007 7:18:30 AM

Quote :

"direct tv had issues with the trees on my property. think it's worth trying dish network, or probably the same results?"

If you stood behind the dish did you have problems to the left or right?

[Edited on March 15, 2007 at 7:21 AM. Reason : .]

3/15/2007 7:21:02 AM

^not a clue... i wasn't there when the guy was trying to do the install. he just called me and said i had too many tall trees to get a good signal. i've got three 100+ year old white oaks, six or eight decent size pine trees, and some other misc. smaller trees on my property.

[Edited on March 15, 2007 at 6:31 PM. Reason : .]

3/15/2007 6:31:24 PM

well i dont need espn u, so if you get rid of those options directtv is 10 bux a month cheaper, thats worth noting.


[Edited on March 15, 2007 at 9:59 PM. Reason : thought they had a coupon for more off the receiver but guess not]

[Edited on March 15, 2007 at 10:01 PM. Reason : ah they do have a free one if you get the lower package it looks like]

[Edited on March 15, 2007 at 10:01 PM. Reason : but no dvr, i dont care]

3/15/2007 9:57:14 PM

just wanted to chime in here.....

I just got Clearwire for my new house in Southwest Raleigh, north of the Crossroads. Simply put, it's awesome.
They fed-ex'd the modem to me, and when I plugged it in on the 2nd floor, i initially got between 2 and 3 LEDs of 5 on the modem, indicating only about 1/2 strength. I was worried about that, but even with only 2 LED strength, the bandwidth test showed 1.4 to 1.5Mbps (my plan is capped at 1.5Mbps). I have rearranged the modem so I get 3 to 4 LEDs now, and still get at least 1.4Mbps on my speed tests.
Also, as someone suggested in another Clearwire thread, the latency seems to be lower than RoadRunner too. Browsing Google Maps, for example, just feels much faster on the CW connection than it did on my old RR connection. Much snappier.

I took a risk, paid for a whole year in advance, and purchased the modem as well, but so far it's worth it. In the long run, looks like better service and cheaper than RR or Earthlink

5/1/2007 10:11:47 PM

gf is on the half-speed plan...she uses vonage as well, and for a while the voice quality seemed too digitized...we called and talked to someone, they made some sort of adjustment on their end and it's great now, even though our speed is still reporting at the half-speed level (we don't need any more than the half speed)

now, if only they'd get CW out where my parents live in podunk, they'd have a whole demographic on a string

5/1/2007 11:35:38 PM

good first post

5/2/2007 3:54:52 AM

I love my satellite. It really kills these podunk ass cable companies in the sticks. Our local cable company is SuddenLink. Where I live they offer NOTHING besides basic digital cable. No HD, no DVR, no internet. But even in another town where we have Charter cable service, I convinced one of my coworkers to switch to DISH as he was having a bad time with Charter. He ended up getting HD (Charter has no HD capability and he had a 63" HD-TV) DVR in 3 rooms, and loaded out package for around $120/month, including a home phone line and basic DSL. Compare that to Charter where he was getting a midrange cable package and spending somewhere around $140/month on that shit. DISH/EMBARQ kicked their asses and he has been SO much happier. In bigger cities like RDU where cable companies are competing, the benefits of satellite may not be as noticeable, but in more rural areas where the cable company is a monoply and has no threats to it, satellite can be FAR cheaper.

5/2/2007 7:45:22 AM

Quote :

"its they're, dumbass"

5/2/2007 8:10:26 AM

BTW for Mr. Grace, I just pickup up a 37" Olevia HDTV monitor for $565, and it's beautiful

5/2/2007 10:33:09 AM