Direct TV and Wild Blue

Direct TV SUCKS!

If you want the full story of my dealings with them let me know, the post will take awhile to type up.

Directv is fine. I have it in Florida.

Yes, it does go out from time to time with severe storms but other than that, its flawless. As for the internet in a rural area... how about a USB aircard? Verizon, AT&T and others have them for $50 per month.

If you are in the Dallas/Ft Worth area, they have that internet connection via the power lines. Its rated at 10 mb up and down. Thats really good since 90% of the country gets like 7 down and less than 1 mb upload speeds. If you are talking about internet via satellite.... dont bother. Its ridiculously slow and choppy. Every ISP is going to have its problems and i'm sure they are no more than any other company. EDIT: I just looked at its speeds... holy shit is that slow. Dont bother.

You can often get directv bundled with your phone and internet through at&t, qwest, verizon, etc. You can get their phone/internet service and directvs tv lineup. gotta love the march madness package.

Very happy with my Direct TV. Great service and picture quality. Unfortunately I do not have any experience with the internet service. I suspect it is good though...great JD Power ratings.

I'm incredibly satisfied with DirecTV. Their HD offerings are excellent.

We've been very happy with DirectTV -- much happier than with cable. No experience with the internet service, though.

I love DirecTV, NFL Sunday Ticket can't be beat.

My DirectTV story:

The satellite was first installed at our apartment in April. The installation appeared to be sub-par at first, the wires were routed through our windows instead of the threshold of the door, the guy left a mess, and in general his work appeared to be poor. We took this with a grain of salt since we are not professionals and trusted his work. We never called and complained about the work because as stated previously we did not invest too much into our appraisal of his work.

Sometime into the summer we started having reception problems. At times the signal would go out for an entire day; we just left this up to weather or some other understandable interruption of signal. About 2 weeks after these interruptions we did not have signal for a week. We called DirectTV to see if we could have a service call to have the problem corrected. During the initial phone call we went through some hoops as is expected when dealing with a call center. We had to reset the power check all connections etc, etc. The way the problem was corrected is still not 100% clear, from what I understand they "rebeam" the signal to us and it would strengthen the signal. I dunno science is a mystery to me. This is how every initial call to their service center went. So when they would resend the signal the reception would come back and problem solved, you think. Later that night it would go out again or sometime the next day. This happened for 2 weeks. They would refuse to send someone out to service the satellite because it was company policy to no send a team out if they could get it corrected while on the phone with you. You can understand our frustration at the situation, so we just gave up for about 3 months. During that time we just watched Netflix movies, it was actually nice to not have TV. We would have just had the contract cancelled but it we would have had to pay the full amount up front. We couldn't get the contract cancelled because they would correct it over the phone. You can see our problem. So we just gave up since it wasn't worth our time.

Well at some point we made another attempt to revive the satellite signal. We called to have a service call and they were finally able to send someone out since they couldn't fix it over the phone. The problem with the service call is that if you can't take off a 4 hour time period M-F they won't send someone out. I've just started a new job and won't take off just to have our TX fixed, and my fiancé is a teacher and can't take off just to have the TV fixed. It took about 20 minutes of arguing with the representative to have them send someone out on the weekend, and the date that was available was 3 weeks from the day we called in. That is understandable if there is a lot of people in the same situation as us those spots will be filled up, I can deal with that.

They sent someone at the date provided, and he was actually on time! The guy was pretty cool and seemed to know what he was talking about. He took one look at the installation of the dish and started laughing. The problem with the installation was that my apartment has no view of the southern sky, and he doesn't know how we ever received signal in the first place. He also said that he couldn't believe the install jobs at the other apartments were done as either, every dish was facing a different direction. The remedy for it was to have a ground unit that was in the middle of the grass. Well our apartment complex wasn't going to go for that, surprise. The repairman said he would go back to his boss and put a recommendation in that we should be refunded and our contract cancelled. Wonderful! A week passed with no word from DirectTV so we gave them a call. When we spoke with them it they said that no one had been out to make a service call the rep never made it out to us. Two problems; you say you are sending a repairman out he reports he never makes it and you don't reschedule after a week, you send a repairman out and he lies about the service call he makes. Either way your company has a big problem.

So they sent someone out again, for the "first time." Two guys came out this time and added a 2' extension bar onto the base and dish to peak over the roof. YEAH! The repair actually worked that is great news. Kind of. 1 month later we had a mild storm that left the dish flapping in the wind. I inspected the problem and the aluminum bracket which attached the dish to the railing on our balcony had sheared in half. This surprised me I've never seen metal fail like that and with such little force. Another service call was in order. At this point I am beyond frustration with DirectTV. During the call I never swore, raised my voice, or acted irrational. It took me an hour of the same arguing back and forth over scheduling a service call not during 9-5 M-F to finally have a manager on the phone. The "manager" had worse customer service skills then the rep before. Manager is in quotes because after working at 2 call centers it is the norm to escalate a call to your friend instead of an actual manager FYI. During the call the "manger" gave me the same story and was very rude during the call. He said they could not cancel the contract because they needed to do a service call, he also said there was no notes on the account of us calling in during the summer (the time when we would have the signal beamed to us while we were on the phone), that the earliest time we could have someone come out would be a month from the day we called in. If you wanted to have the possibility of getting an earlier date you needed to contact the actual local repair center to see if they can bump you in. When on the phone with the "manager" he said, "I'm not going to call the local office you can do that yourself." This would be a total of 4 months out of not even a year w/o service, unacceptable. During the conversation I said that I wanted to file a formal complaint and asked what the process was, here is how the conversation went:
"What is the process for filling a formal complaint?" -me
"You would speak to a manager." -Greg the "manager"
"Greg, aren't you a manager?" - Me
"Yes, what seems to be the problem today Mr. Bhowie?"- Greg (in a smartass tone)
I asked to be transferred to the cancellations department, during the transfer Greg hung up on me. Professional. That was the first 2 hours of that call. The next call was only another 2 hours as well. This call was actually handled perfectly, no joke. The person on the phone was very helpful and polite. He was actually able to arrange an earlier time for a service contract and with that service contract came a guarantee, in writing, that if it stops working they will send someone in 24 hours to have it working. Within a week someone came out and fixed it. We haven't had any interruptions of service since.

I have lost focus of writing the rest of the story in as much detail. If this is rambling or unclear. I will be happy to clarify. Work is busy that's why I didn't post this sooner or clearer. I didn't proof read the post either.

DTV contracts with dealers. The guy who came to your house was probably from "joe's satellite" or some local place like that. They are getting their money from corporate and know that if you aren't happy you are going to call the call center, not the local dealer that installed it. Its like that with any company that works with thousands of dealers, there is a big disconnect - everything goes through one system.

Sounds like you live in an apt too. If you are so inclined you can talk your building management about getting central DTV - it is hard wired into each unit like cable and there is just one satellite on the roof of the building. You can still pick your individual packages and all that stuff, it just helps reduce the balcony clutter and dozens of installation runs the dealers make. I know a bunch of newer units are doing that, it's a win-win for everyone.

1.) I learned that about DTV contracting out to local companies. Still doesn't explain the service call that they never sent out to us. We even called the local office directly to see what was going on and they said the same thing, he never came out to our place because he was to busy that night.

2.) We just bought a house and are moving (this Thursday! ) So I'm not going to do anything else about having the complex install one large dish. That is pretty neat though.

My main problem was the horrendous customer service and what appeared to be dishonesty by several of their employees or people they contract work out to.