It seems that all companies that deliver some sort of television subscription service leave something to be desired, however Dish Network takes the cake.

The other day I went to a customer's home to see why his Dish DVR wasn't working. He has had it only a short time and complained that he could never get it to work right.

Since the unit was installed, they had someone work on their alarm system. The alarm installer inadvertantly disconnected two of their five receivers, including the DVR, from the phone line.

When Dish realized that the phone line was no longer connected, they called the customer and asked if they could do a phone-line test. In the middle of doing the test, they informed the client that if his equipment didn't pass the test, that it would be disabled permanently. Dish claims that they told the customer before performing the test, but the customer says they were already performing the test before he was informed about the consequences.

When I came to their house and noticed that the equipment was no longer authorized, Dish told me that the customer agreed to the non-reversible test and that the receivers couldn't be re-authorized. So, after spending a considerable sum to have the DVR installed (it was difficult), they can't even use it.

If it wasn't for the fact that they were Grandfathered in for East and West Coast network feeds, they would tell Dish where they can stick their system and get DirecTV instead.

Dish tells me that DirecTV has the same policy regarding phone line connection, but I have never experienced it with any DirecTV system. I have had DirecTV in my home for 12 years, most of the time without a phone line connected to any of the three receivers, without any problem. The only reason that I finally connected a phone line, was because I installed two TiVos in liu of conventional receivers. I also know of many residential and commercial systems that are not connected to phone lines, without a problem.

Have any of you ever experienced DirecTV back-charging a client or permanently disabling equipment as a result of not having a phone line hooked up? The guy at Dish Network tried to tell me that both DirecTV and Dish will back-charge the client for a second subscription if they find out that a phone line is not connected.

I will never install another Dish Network system again. What a bunch of jerks!

DirecTV "prefers" the phone lines connected, but will not charge for not having it done. Dish Network only REQUIRES the phone line on the dual tuner boxes that will run multiple rooms. The addittional outlet fee for the 2nd room is waived if the phone line is connected. Worst case sceneario, the cust gets charged an extra $5/mo if no phone lin eis connected. In the end however, this is no different than the way it USED to be before the dual tuners even came along. They pay $5/mo addittional for each TV beyond the 1st, just like they did since the beinning of time. Many customers dont have land lines anymore, so this is the end result anyway.

Now if there are more than 6 tuners on an account, this may be a different story, and DOES cause a lot more suspicion on Dish's end.

Pegasus is the only one that ever REQUIRED a phone line be connected before they would activate a box, and they are bankruft now.

Hope this helps.

Years ago, DTV required it. You had to make the click sound on the line while on the phone with them... What a joke. Call in from line two in the house, and you can't activate your dish. Call back and wait another half hour.

Why should it be a race? Face it - they both s*ck.

At least pic quality is better than comcrap

Kinda makes you long for the days of the good old antenna.

Dish is the worst company, besides maybe Sony that I have ever dealt with.

When I first got Dish it was $1.50/month for the mirror charge. But hey I also paid $300 for each receiver.

I just had a customer try and get a DVR installed by DirecTV. There is only one feed to the current receiver. The installer was just supposed to install the DVR with one feed and I would come back and run the second one this week. The installer wanted to run the feed hiimself, via holes in the floor of the 800,000 house.
She asked if he would just hook it up with the one feed for now but he refused, saying that" you will only get half the channels if I only hook up the one feed".

this was after a couple of hours on the phone with DirecTV to get the proper box ordered to begin with.

As for Dish and the receivers. I'd be on the phone with MANY people on that one. There is no way that was a legal move on their part.

The problem with your customer was that he has more than 3 receivers. Dish was testing to see if they were all in the same house. They are from the Audit Dept. Since your customer could not complete the test with those receivers, they were shut off. You need to have all the receivers pluged in to phone lines, call Dish's customer retention dept, explain the situation, and with a lot of patience, you should be able to get them back on.

I have never experienced a problem with the phone line while using DirecTV, except for pay-per-view and with TiVo models.

Dish Network permanently unauthorized the DVR and one receiver. There were originally five receivers in the house including the DVR. Dish tells me that they cannot re-authorize the receivers ever, unless they set up a second account and pay for two services. Yeah, like that's going to happen! The customer was furious and I was even more furious.

Dish has a long reputation for screwing over dealers. I will do what I can to spread the word. If you have clients without phone lines connected, watch out for them, because you will probably start getting some calls.

Dish Network is by far and away the ugliest corporate monster I have EVER dealt with in my life. They consistently lie to both clients and installers, steal from installers (in the form of refusal to pay) and offer the lamest product in the sat. industry. Even Voom was easier to work with. The funny thing is, after an entire history of chasing DirecTV, they have the balls to claim they are the bleeding edge of sat. tech. What an EVIL joke. I feel awful for your client but, just call to cancel the service and those egg sucking dogs will most likely tuck their tales and fix the issue. They claim it can't be reversed and as is co. policy with Echostar, they are lying. I advise my clients to take Comcrap before Echostar and thankfully, they typically agree. I'm a DirecTV guy and even with their new LAME g.u.i., I'm stickin' with them.

been a dish dealer for a long time...never have any problems...maybe i'm doing something wrong.......

Ed, Do they pay as their supposed to? Maybe it's a Colorado thing but, I couldn't trust Charlie any further than I could throw his enterouge.

i think so... never really check.... we dont do promotions at all... we just sell and custom install of our own clients stuff....

cool