Getting satellite TV, anyone got any tips or suggestions?

[BoringSupreez]

I'm leaning towards Dish Network's Family Pack for $25 p/month, although I'm also considering the Dish America pack for $35 p/month. It's hard to choose between the two, because while Family has Nickelodeon, The Hub, and Boomerang, America's got Cartoon Network, Comedy Central, and USA.

I'm trying to reduce costs as much as possible, regardless of which pack I choose. I'm not signing on for a two-year contract because I don't plan to still live at home after this next school year, so I want something I can walk away from when I move. I'm only going to take one receiver, so that I don't have to pay monthly fees for them. I noticed there's $250 worth of start-up fees, something called "Flex24 Activation" being the largest one.

Anyone know how to avoid these fees? Any tips on reducing other monthly costs? Any hidden costs I should know about?

[Cronozilla]

The only way to not pay the fees is to get a lease. (That's why they're there, to coerce you)

Maybe looking into other options like FIOS? It's probably the best TV service I've had ... the only downside is it's missing CN in HD :\ But it was much cheaper, overall. (We had DirecTV, they were charging $110 a month just for TV. DishNetwork was trying to charge $95 at the end of our deal AND they constantly have tiffs with contract renewals of local stations, so we lost ABC at the time)

Right now with FIOS we pay about $120 ... but it includes 25Mbps internet. And our package is kinda up there with three receivers and all that jazz (two of which are HDDVRs) So, it's actually much cheaper.

I know they have an alacart payment situation (per month) ... might want to weigh all options possible.

[indecks]

/douche mode activated


Skip dish/Directv/cable, get a $10/$15 per month subscription to a News server, and pay the one time $7 fee for NZBMatrix.com, and download all your shows. Also, get Netflix if you don't already have it.

I cut the cable/dish a while back and have never looked back.

[BoringSupreez]

The only way to not pay the fees is to get a lease. (That's why they're there, to coerce you)

Maybe looking into other options like FIOS? It's probably the best TV service I've had ... the only downside is it's missing CN in HD :\ But it was much cheaper, overall. (We had DirecTV, they were charging $110 a month just for TV. DishNetwork was trying to charge $95 at the end of our deal AND they constantly have tiffs with contract renewals of local stations, so we lost ABC at the time)

Right now with FIOS we pay about $120 ... but it includes 25Mbps internet. And our package is kinda up there with three receivers and all that jazz (two of which are HDDVRs) So, it's actually much cheaper.

I know they have an alacart payment situation (per month) ... might want to weigh all options possible.

I'd do that in a flash, except I live in the middle of nowhere and can't get cable anything. That's part of why I don't want a two-year contract. I plan to move to a city eventually, and I'll get cable there, so I don't want to be locked into satellite after it's no longer necessary.

/douche mode activated


Skip dish/Directv/cable, get a $10/$15 per month subscription to a News server, and pay the one time $7 fee for NZBMatrix.com, and download all your shows. Also, get Netflix if you don't already have it.

I cut the cable/dish a while back and have never looked back.

Because I can't get fast internet where I live, viewing TV online is not an option. I have three options right now as far as TV goes: get Dish Network, get DirecTV, or stick with broadcast TV, which I can only get four channels of.

[Zing]

What is your definition of "fast internet"? Even relatively slow DSL (3Mbps) is sufficient.

You can download pretty much anything you want in 720p at this point for a measly $9 a month.

[BoringSupreez]

What is your definition of "fast internet"? Even relatively slow DSL (3Mbps) is sufficient.

You can download pretty much anything you want in 720p at this point for a measly $9 a month.

I have satellite internet from Hughesnet. I get 150 kilobytes per second download speeds, with a 425 megabyte per day cap. My definition of "fast internet" is any DSL or better.

[Menegrothx]

I get 150 kilobytes per second download speeds, with a 425 megabyte per day cap.

Sorry for the offtopic but what kind of backwards BS is that? 425 mb cap, in the year 2012? Is that common where you live? Does that mean that you cant download games on steam at all, or does it take like 2-7 days to download an individual game?

[BoringSupreez]

I get 150 kilobytes per second download speeds, with a 425 megabyte per day cap.

Sorry for the offtopic but what kind of backwards BS is that? 425 mb cap, in the year 2012? Is that common where you live?

Sadly, yes, and not just where I live. Anywhere rural that doesn't have DSL is limited to satellite internet, of which there are two choices: Hughes and Wildblue. They're about the same when it comes to quality.

Does that mean that you cant download games on steam at all, or does it take like 2-7 days to download an individual game?

They don't count bandwidth used between 1 AM and 6 AM, so I do all my big downloads then. Anything larger than 2 or 3 gigabytes takes two days to download.

[Zing]

425MB??? My cell phone has a higher byte cap!

Actually, that could be a good alternative. A tethered iPhone.

[BoringSupreez]

Well, I have more income than I expected I'd be getting, so I went with the America's Top 200 from Dish Network. So now I've got a new question: do any of you know of a good DVR that doesn't cost multiple hundreds of dollars and doesn't have a subscription fee like Tivo? I didn't want to rent one from the satellite company, because they wanted a $100 activation fee in addition to $6 per month. I'd much rather own mine.