[Vision2020] DishTV or DirectTV ?

[Eric Flanery]

Take this with as much salt as you deem necessary, given my obvious bias, but...

The Internet offerings from both Dish and Direct are not delivered by
those companies, but through agreements with other national companies
such as Verizon and Wild Blue, as neither Dish system nor the Direct
systems are capable of bi-directional communication. They only offer
them as a marketing ploy, to compare themselves with MSOs and LECs
that actually deliver both services. Really, bundling like this (real
or artificial) is not good for the end user, unless an actual tangible
benefit is offered. Doing so artificially ties one service to the
other, and makes it harder to change providers for one service,
without impacting the other.

Also, there is much talk about supporting local companies, and keeping
money circulating in the local economy, rather than going to distant
'mega-corps'. Unfortunately, there is no truly local option for TV
service in Moscow. Time Warner, Dish Network, and Direct TV are all
national companies. But while there is no local TV service provider
(there rarely is), we here at First Step do install and support Dish
Network systems. So, at least part of your TV dollar can be kept in
the local economy. We are also able to provide much better on-site
service than the DirectTV resellers, as we run local crews, and have
local trucks which can be dispatched much quicker than the Spokane
based DirectTV crews.

We would also be more than happy to sell anyone Internet service, on
our own local high-speed network. There aren't many options for
Internet service that are truly local; with Clear Wire, Time Warner,
Verizon, Wild Blue, Hughes Net, and all the cellular options being
based far away. They do little if anything to support the local
economy.

If one were to end up getting both Internet service, and Dish Network
service through First Step; the services would not be tied to each
other, aside from the potential convenience of having them installed
together.

--Eric

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 5:10 PM, Kenneth Marcy <kmmos1 at verizon.net> wrote:
> On Tuesday 10 March 2009 16:16:08 Steven Basoa wrote:
>> I have been asked to inquire about people's experiences with Dish TV
>> and/or Direct TV.  Is one better than the other, are there reception
>> problems in inclement weather, installation issues, billing issues,
>> quality of service and repairs, etc.  Cable is not an option so long
>> as TImeWarner is the only choice.
>>
>> Thanks for any insights.
>
> I don't use any of the three services, but I can tell you that Google suggests
> it has 266,000 results to show for the search dish tv versus direct tv.
>
> You didn't mention whether you're asking only about TV or also about Internet
> service which either DishTV or DirecTV can provide. I'd suggest that their
> Internet services be analyzed separately from their TV offerings if the user
> does not have an alternate provider for high speed Internet service.
>
>
> Ken
>
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>  serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.
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