I hardly ever run into Dish for some reason, so I'm not used to dealing with their installers.

I have a customer who's rather annoyed with DirecTV, and was wondering if Dish would be a better alternative and maybe easier to deal with for the install!

I wired up the coaxial lines for his new house on the wall above the first floor roof over hang. The over hang is about 12 feet up from the ground to the gutter, then there is about a 6 foot stretch of very gradual composite roof up to the second floor wall where the coaxial lines pop out about a foot up on the wall. The lines needed to come out high in order to clear the trees. I figured slam dunk install for DirecTV right?

The DirecTV guy comes out and says he can't get up on the roof because DirecTV won't allow it. They have to have some safety guy come out and put a 250 lb weight on the other side of the house so the guy can't fall off and hurt himself. They will allow the installer to mount the dish right behind the gutter, which the customer doesn't want , as it is way more visible and requires the screwing into the roof.

Now the customer is trying to reschedule, and DirecTV says they won't install the dish in the wired location no matter what-not even with a safety guy on hand. I understand the concern for safety, but this is one of those scenarios that just seems ridiculous.

First off, seems like the newer Dish system is pretty pimped out with all the tuners 'n such. Does anyone have any experience with Dish installs to tell me if they think they will be more accommodating?

I considered just installing the dish myself, as I used to do it a long time ago, or maybe bribing the installer. I just want it done and to look good for the customer.

I had a similar situation not long ago.
It was a 1 story ranch and the roof had a very low pitch but the Direct guy wouldn't get on it. There were tons of trees and the dish would only work on near the chimney which was near the middle of the roof.
Customer was pissed and told him to take a hike. Called Dish and they were out 1.5 hours later and had no issue getting on the roof.

I don't think Dish is better but they are closer now with the joey/hopper system.

We recently got the new hopper/Joey system on display at our store.

I havent been able to compare dtv and dish side by side, but in the past the DTV picture was at least as good if not better than our Comcast picture through Comcast boxes

The dish network system looks Horrible compared to our comcast through TiVo Minis.

Which is better? That depends. Do you prefer 6 or a half dozen?

That said, I've run into the same problem where DTV said they couldn't go on a roof. I asked why did he have a 18' extension ladder on his van. No answer. I recently switched from cable to dish (had DTV before, and each switch has been price motivated). I like it. The hopper3 works very well for my setup. Better than the current genie would. And I like the mobile apps better. But the 3rd party control is less than I would like it to be (unless you do C4, and then there's a god damned big C4 logo as one of the options in the setup menu)

Bottom line, all service providers suck balls. The CEOs and largest stock holders of all of them should be lined up and executed on public TV. Pick one and know that all are going to be as painful as the rest. But if you do C4, I'd factor in the built in dish integration to my decision.

He was correct in the fact that it is a company policy now at DirecTV, to not allow installers onto the roof. Been this way since last year.
The reason the installer had an 18' extension ladder, is to get to a dish. He is not allowed to 'leave' the ladder to get onto the roof. But he can work on any dish he can reach from his ladder.

All you need to do is hire an independent satellite installer, if you don't have the ability to install one yourself (or don't want to).
I ALWAYS inform customers that if they actually want an install done correctly, they need to pay someone to do it (me or 3rd party, I don't care). Most still choose the free install from the provider, then always bitch & whine because of the results.

Most dealers that can't do the work themselves, seem to choose the same. Then bitch & whine on the forums about it.

!!!! Find a local competent independent satellite installer and pay them !!!!
Yes they are VERY hard to find but they are out there.

"So is Dish better than DirecTV now?"

No..

I would rate them lower than Comcast/XFinity.. With DirecTV still on top.


I install all of my own dishes in locations that can be serviced without using anything more than a 6 ft ladder. Install the Dishpointer Pro app on your phone, you would be amazed at where you can actually mount a dish and get a way with getting over trees.

I have had Dish for a few years now. I have dealt with Xfinity, DTV, Fios, Cablevision, Charter, Uverse and maybe one or two others with clients. I would put Dish towards the top of that list. ALL of them suck. I may be in the minority, but I hate DTV. Hate the layout, the menu, the fact it takes 2 months to change channels, and the fact you can't simply scroll the info bar. Their installers have always been terrible, and their boxes lock up. I have had none of those issues with Dish. Their installers have been surprisingly good, equipment has been reliable. I have had a couple lockups on my own system, in 3 years. PQ seems to be on par with DTV, but hard to compare without having them side by side. We are moving to a rental now that we are selling our house and I am sad to say we have to go with Charter rather than Dish until we buy a new house.

Interesting Gold. Im the opposite. I despise Dish. Granted their new Hoppers are better.

I have no issue with DTV. SUPERIOR menu layout, IMO. easy. fast. efficient. But, its all just opinion. Guess its just what we are used to using. For YEARS dish SUCKED with their big ass boxes and 1.8 million cables in the back, no HD on tv 2 out, etc. But thats all changed. As far as pic quality, i sure cant tell a difference in the two.

Correct, DTV policy, NO ROOFS. They can use a ladder and mount on a roof, but only the edge of a roof that. They cannot step off the ladder. I was told too many installers fell AND some thru the roof and DTV was sued. Actually, Dish has same policy but its not adhered to. Call an independent. They will do anything for money.

DirecTV also has a new policy about getting under houses. No cant do. in the last year or two an installer went under a house and was electrocuted. Another bit by a snake, thus, new rules.

Sorry to hear you have to go with charter. In my opinion, they are absolutely the worst. Worst layout, worst graphics, worst hardware, worst service, worst everything.

My experience with dish so far has been great. When I decided to switch, I called on a Sunday afternoon to sign up. the call was answered immediately by someone in America, I think the whole process took less than 10 minutes and was painless. My entire install with the brand new hopper 3 and 4 joeys was free. DTV would have cost i think $100. The tech was great when he came out, not like most of the DTV guys I've dealt with. And, I can run all joeys at the same time, where with DTV, I would have only been able to use 3 genie clients at once. Also, the apps and dish anywhere service is great, and when my free trial of movie channels was about to expire, I logged into my account on the website and canceled them with no hassles or extra fees.

True, but they have the best lineup of any provider by far. Just compare the lineups on AVSForum. Last time I checked, they had at least 60 more HD channels than Dish or DirecTV. Tivo gets around their DVR issues and adds tons of streaming capabilities and whole home capabilities.

Charter sucks, period. When we first got Dish, they had something like 800 channels less than Uverse that we had before. Initial thought was this is crap. We quickly realized we didn't need all those channels. Everything we wanted (for the most part) was available on Dish. The only exception is local sports. We are in the NY market and get none of the NY sports stations. Otherwise, we've never felt we were at a loss.

Yes, they used to suck really bad. But things have changed dramatically at Charter in the past couple of years. They now have far more HD than Uverse and better picture quality than Uverse and Dish, nearly equal to DirecTV.

I've had Dish, DirecTV, Uverse and Charter many times over the years. They tended to leapfrog each other from year to year in terms of lineup and equipment. Charter, of course, lagged far behind most of the time, still does in terms of their DVR. But they recently leapfrogged satellite in terms of lineup in a big way. See for yourself:

[Link: gracenote.com]

Uverse's lineup is pretty close to Charter, but satellite is far behind. Also satellite doesn't have nearly as many local sub-channels as cable unless you add OTA.

Back when I had Dish, I loved the Hopper, but lost channels all the time due to disputes. I also loved DirecTV, but they have become far too expensive. I didn't have Uverse for long, but they weren't bad either except for internet speed and limited number HD streams.

Charter has its share of issues to be sure, but of the 4 providers above, you can't get more HD. But they had such a terrible reputation for so many years, that's going to be very hard for them to overcome.

I just switched from charter about 4 months ago and I never noticed more HD channels. What I did notice was that regularly I would see something in the guide I wanted to watch and I would click on it and see "this channel is not in your package". I was at the silver. I couldn't justify the price to do th gold package.

I deal with most of the carriers in the area enough to know what is good and what is no. Charter is NOT. It is the worst. Again, you can have 10,000 channels in HD and it won't matter. You can watch 1 channel at a time. What I get with Dish is MORE than enough content. I just wish I had local sports. That is the one caveat.

Charter's boxes suck. Their DVR sucks. They do not have a whole house DVR offering. The PQ is no better than Dish or the others, and IMHO is a little worse. Their internet goes down more than any other carrier I have had or worked with. Their support is meh. We got a phone with them several years back, and we paid for an unlisted number. Within days, we started getting a ton of spam calls. Guess what, the a$$wipes listed it. Charter sucks!!!

One thing that has always irritated me about charter is that they have always been so far behind on technology, and Paul Allen started the company and is still one of the larger owners