My 2 cents about DirecTV.
I originally had then AT&T (Now Comcast) cable when I lived in Sunnyvale, but in August 2001, my parents originally got DirecTV and personally, I'm not too happy of the way that they do business, their signals kept dropping off, the contract for 2 years was almost $500 at the time, plus having all of those channels including their so called NFL Sunday ticket was just too much to handle and after the first year, the total bill was $750! Their response to technical issues were also bad too when it came to freezeouts with the DVR. There was no KFTY Channel 50 yet as DirecTV did not get KFTY until 2006-07. One flaw to point out about DirecTV here, I overheard that the DirecTV recievers were very easy to hack with the Access cards that were recieving illegal signals while Dish Network's recievers worked completely fine and was 100% hackproof making it very difficult to get illegal signals. Another thing was that DirecTV's cancellation service was so bad, that my parents had to file a claim due to dissatisfaction of services.
In December, 2003, my parents dropped DirecTV because of bad service and went with Dish Network. We have been customers ever since. For one thing even though all of the sports packages from DirecTV are so cool, the prices really jack up to a very big price in which it makes it very difficuly to afford, also the Distant Network Signals are limited to NYC and LA with CW service from Washington D.C. (WDCW) and San Diego (XETV) while I get the same stuff on Dish Network with the fact that I get stations besides my locals out of Monterey/Salinas I get the major 5 superstations (KTLA, KWGN, WSBK, WWOR, WPIX) and it really helps whenever I want to watch my Regis & Kelly out of KWGN at 8 AM since I do not want to wait that much for my other shows I watch (Let's Make a Deal & Price is Right). DirecTV sadly doesn't care about since they are only caring about Sports Packages and stuff plus WGN America being in HD since 2005 with Dish, plus KFTY was added to Dish in 2004. The Distant Networks are also good too since a 3rd party controls them after Dish could no longer import the signals themselves. I am about 65-70 miles away from my local signals so I could get stations from San Francisco (SD), LA and Chicago (HD) it's just a shame that DirecTV does not allow their Distant Networks to be in HD
I really am very happy with my Dish because at least the pricing is affordable and I really like how Charlie Ergen does have his own show to discuss his concerns and how he can improve Dish Service and I like that when it comes to caring about their customers. Unfortunately, I feel that DirecTV is only after making their sports channels big and jacking up prices as well as overcharging their customers and I was very upset about that when I discontinued DirecTV in 2003, now they are completely b***hurt and are asking us to come back to them, one answer to them, NO!
