Well in his defense, he never used it. He spends all his time on his megayachts using one of the Sat providers :-D

does anyone actually care about the quality of the picture your receiving?

Shocking! That's one of my pet peeves about DirecTV. If you want to cancel or reduce your package, they make you call in, at which time you are harassed. "Oh my sir, are you really sure you want to miss out on all this great programming? Hey, do you like any of the shows like (blah, blah, blah) on HBO? Gosh, you'll really be sorry! As if they're my friend or something. Riiiighht.

Now I just have the same script I repeat over and over to the drone on the other end: "No, I don't wantch that. No, I don't care about that. No, I actually don't really even like TV. I have one channel I watch...."

In this scenario, do you just let DirecTV know you are doing a "self install" and have them ship the gear direct to you?

We had a customer who's DTV service originally had our office number listed on the account. After about a year, the property was added into a resort rentals and converted to the correct commercial plan. DTV called our office every day to try to sign the customer back up. I finally got the calls to stop one day by telling the caller that I don't watch tv. I hate tv. My family loved tv, but they all died in a car wreck, and then started crying. No more phone calls from directv

Dealers order the gear from their distributors, just like any other provider.
I work very closely with a satellite dealer I've know since the mid 90's (was working on C-Band systems with him back in the day). If I need DirecTV stuff, we order what I need from his assigned DirecTV distributor. If I need DishNetwork stuff, we order from that assigned distributor. FTA equipment comes from a variety of places - although he doesn't do much Free-to-Air anymore, other than Korean channels for the Korean community.

The only time DirecTV ships anything to the customer, is when they made the mistake of calling the 800# (sometimes they have to thou, if they want certain deals). Then you let the DirecTV/DishNetwork guy do whatever it is he thinks he needs to do, then clean up and fix the install afterwards.


Again, if you're not a satellite dealer or have a working relationship with an independent satellite dealer... WHY NOT!
It is the ONLY way you can guarantee the exact model of equipment you want in the install. Otherwise, it's whatever the company provider installer has laying in the back of his truck.

I second the suggestion to find an independent SAT dealer/installer. I found one in my market a year ago and he's been like manna from Heaven...He'll preconfigure gear ahead of time (RF remotes, commissioning clients w/Genies, etc.) and will give me equipment ahead of activation for building racks, etc. It's a dream come true. He also happens to take pride in his installation work...Bonus.

If only there were independent Time Warner Dealers...

All of the reasons above is why we became DirecTV dealers. We got tired of depending on jackasses for installation AND sending $ someone else's way. It's actually profitable and we know the project is done right. If anyone wants to use us as their go to dealer for equipment, I guess we could ship the gear straight to you.

So, in this scenario you're actually purchasing the DVR, dish, and all the clients I assume...

That doesn't actually reduce the monthly bill does it?

We have been an independent dealer since the inception of DirecTV. The first thing we do is check to see if the customer is a "new" customer or has had DirecTV before. If the customer is a "new" customer then we are able to supply him with free equipment (dish, lnb, Genie and up to three clients) and standard install for free.

Extra equipment and extra labor to do the job the right way is billed to the customer. We will go up on roofs that DirecTV won't and install the dishes at locations on the roof so that they can't be seen. Of course if they have a problem in the future with the dish on the roof they need to call me because DirecTV won't service it.

For existing customers of DirecTV if their boxes go out I can check their account on the DirecTV website and see if they are eligible for free upgrades. That way if the box dies I can replace it for free but I charge the customer for my labor.

You get what you pay for. If you are getting a free install and paying nothing then don't complain when the service is lacking.

This would be more for a client that you were working a project for. Davet above is right when he says they would need to be new to DirecTV and not previous subscribers. (there are some loopholes here too, like, someone else's name, etc)

We would just run the DirecTV app on your client, they would get approved for whatever gear needed (most of the time it's free), we'd ship the gear to you and you would install it. Then when it's ready to go, we would activate it. Done.

Buying the equipment outright doesn't change the bill at all.

Good info.

Ended up rescheduling DirecTV and telling them we want a pole mount, so they set up a temporary base on the ground for the dish and hooked everything up.

Now the customer will pay me to move the dish to the originally planned spot. He knows I will have to service it, but is OK with it. Hopefully my sat finder still works, or I may dig around for a local DTV dealer that goes on roofs as suggested. If anyone knows of a good one that services Boulder county let me know.

I used to be independent DTV dealer/installer.
They shit canned me because I wan't doing 6 new installations per month; maybe per quarter -- I forget which one.

Did that change or are you doing enough new installs that it doesn't matter?

I told DTV that I didn't care about free installer account or promos, etc.
I told them that as CI, I could be working at a single client's installation for 3-6 months.
They said it wasn't going to be a problem, until one day they send me walking papers.