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Stuck with Dish: advice? suggestions??


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Yes, got stuck with 2 more years on my contract w/ Dishnet, which is generally OK, but they dropped FSMW and there's evidently no end of that dispute in sight (I was told twice now, most recently at Christmas, that this would be resolved shortly...).

anyone else out there looking for alternatives, as the Cardinals get warmed up for some baseball? I thought SlingTV would work at a reasonable price but they dropped it too. I hate shelling out $50 a month for HuluPlus, just for baseball, Blues Hockey, and whatever Billikens games end up on FSMW... of course I can always just hide the bill from my parsimonious/ penurious/ penny-pinching wife.

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6 minutes ago, slubillikens43 said:

YouTube TV is awesome for $50/month. They renewed their deal with Sinclair so you still get FSMW plus unlimited DVR.

I agree with YouTube TV. The best part is you don’t have wait and deal with getting new equipment set up. Once you sign up, you can instantly start watching live TV. 

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Add me to the YouTube TV converts last year. Our only regret was not doing it sooner. (We previously had all of the other carriers.) Being able to have six accounts on one subscription was a big sell factor for us. Reasonably priced internet helped as well. And finally, $50 monthly cost spread out.

With YouTube TV we lost NFL Network (not a big deal to us as we only watch games not talk or shows) and Pac 12 Network (which we liked and watched a lot on Dish, but there is an app for Pac 12 Network) Most others are included or have been recently added. Price went from $35 to $40 to now $50 per month. You will still have to monitor price buy much more casually than before at least for now.  Obviously DirecTV offered more sports channels and more sports packages than Dish, but if you are coming from Dish, those won't be an issue with YTTV.

Prior to the Pandemic customer service was good, swift. Less availability temporarily, but it is rarely needed.

Dish has been moving away from the sports model for a long time. They are moving toward the cell phone industry. The old days are over.

There was zero chance my family would have gone long without Fox Sport Midwest. In the old days there would be a dispute and threats of blackouts that didn't happen. Eventually that became shorter period blackouts, then longer ones, then no resolution for years. 

For us, YouTube TV is by far the closest thing to Satellite or Cable. Charter was non-competitive when we talked with them. And one of our accounts was unable to get DirecTV (which we have had as well) So comparing streaming options, it was pretty quick and easy to pick YouTube TV. It gets most channels as before, including a lot or sports channels, and you can add premium channels or drop any time.

You also don't have to be concerned about the satellite going out.

It's also convenient to add/drop/watch other apps.

The past couple of years has been the first time in I can't tell you how many years that I don't have to closely monitor the TV stuff monthly or weekly. I needed the break from that where it can be a bit more casual for a while.

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If you push a little bit, they will cancel your contract for not having Fox Sports Midwest. Being in St Louis it is a pretty easy justification to say "I have you because of this channel and only this channel." It might take a call or three but you can get it done. 

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1 hour ago, JMM28 said:

If you push a little bit, they will cancel your contract for not having Fox Sports Midwest. Being in St Louis it is a pretty easy justification to say "I have you because of this channel and only this channel." It might take a call or three but you can get it done. 

i agree.   just keep asking for a supervisor.  eventually they will tire of transfers or maybe they will give you a different deal too good to pass up.

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2 hours ago, DoctorB said:

Yes, got stuck with 2 more years on my contract w/ Dishnet, which is generally OK, but they dropped FSMW and there's evidently no end of that dispute in sight (I was told twice now, most recently at Christmas, that this would be resolved shortly...).

anyone else out there looking for alternatives, as the Cardinals get warmed up for some baseball? I thought SlingTV would work at a reasonable price but they dropped it too. I hate shelling out $50 a month for HuluPlus, just for baseball, Blues Hockey, and whatever Billikens games end up on FSMW... of course I can always just hide the bill from my parsimonious/ penurious/ penny-pinching wife.

ESPN + is $4.99 a month.  Get it only during basketball season.  Got probably 75% of the games.  Then with ESPN2 and FS1 on my cable got most of the rest.  Missed maybe 3 games tops.

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2 hours ago, JMM28 said:

If you push a little bit, they will cancel your contract for not having Fox Sports Midwest. Being in St Louis it is a pretty easy justification to say "I have you because of this channel and only this channel." It might take a call or three but you can get it done. 

This is what I did when I cut the cord, but had to keep my ATT wireless internet. They tried to jack up the price of my internet since I canceled the “bundle”. I kept telling them that I could get the “new customer” internet price for $50 if I switched to Spectrum. And that I also knew that ATT offered wireless internet to their new customers for $50. So they could either give me the new customer price, or I can switch to Spectrum, so ATT will get nothing from me, and I’d go to every review site I can find to explain to potential customers that ATT values new customers more than existing ones (I would never really do that. I don’t care enough and have better things to do, but they don’t know that.) It took about an hour and a half, and I had to talk about 7 different people, but they’ll eventually give in.

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Does anyone have any experience with Hulu with live TV? Specifically with what sports you have available? Being 24 with one roommate we're looking to spend wisely, but I'm making it clear to him Billiken basketball is a priority. 

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9 minutes ago, hmart23 said:

Does anyone have any experience with Hulu with live TV? Specifically with what sports you have available? Being 24 with one roommate we're looking to spend wisely, but I'm making it clear to him Billiken basketball is a priority. 

Hmart, I’ve never used Hulu Live TV, but just googled this. Looks like they DO carry Fox Sports Midwest (or whatever Fox Sports regional channels, if you’re out of town). They also carry CBS Sports and NBC sports. So you should be good for all Billikens games.

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Edited by Reinert310
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14 minutes ago, hmart23 said:

Does anyone have any experience with Hulu with live TV? Specifically with what sports you have available? Being 24 with one roommate we're looking to spend wisely, but I'm making it clear to him Billiken basketball is a priority. 

I got a trial briefly when FSMW's deal was off Youtube TV for a couple days and didn't really like it - it was only a couple days I tried it though. User interface is not great

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14 minutes ago, Littlebill said:

I got a trial briefly when FSMW's deal was off Youtube TV for a couple days and didn't really like it - it was only a couple days I tried it though. User interface is not great

Agreed. YouTube TV is the best streaming TV service offered right now IMO. I've tried most of them, including spending a lot of time on Sling due to its offering of NFL Red Zone, but YouTube TV is far superior.

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I went from DirectTV to YouTube TV.

love it! Absolutely no regrets.

As much as I enjoy YouTube TV the best part of making the switch is not needing to deal with AT&T anymore. The customer service at AT&T might be the worst in the history of businesses. 
Every time I needed to talk to them it turned into a 30 minute shouting match.

I was convinced my wife was going to come home from work one day and I’d be dead on the floor...cause of death “heart attack from dealing with AT&T.”

Im a pretty calm guy  but talking to them was just awful.

Towards the end I knew how bad it was going to be so I’d pour a whiskey on the rocks before making the call. Then I’d need another after the call.

 

F those people. I’m getting mad just thinking about it.

 

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I’ve been very intrigued by cord cutting, as I primarily have Directv for live sports. Almost everything else I watch is on Hulu, Netflix, Disney +, etc. The problem is that even though I have AT&T Fiber internet, live sports come in kind of janky. It’s like the connection can’t keep up with the stream. 
During Covid, with no live sports until the return of European soccer, I just downgraded by Directv package to save money. I’ll bump it up whenever we get more sports back and I want to watch them.

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40 minutes ago, DeSmetBilliken said:

I’ve been very intrigued by cord cutting, as I primarily have Directv for live sports. Almost everything else I watch is on Hulu, Netflix, Disney +, etc. The problem is that even though I have AT&T Fiber internet, live sports come in kind of janky. It’s like the connection can’t keep up with the stream. 
During Covid, with no live sports until the return of European soccer, I just downgraded by Directv package to save money. I’ll bump it up whenever we get more sports back and I want to watch them.

If you have Fiber, you might want to check the age of your modem and/or wireless router. We upgraded to a Mesh Router with one satellite and our modem since they were out of date. It made a load of difference and no lag on the stream. Also, just dropped DirecTV after 20 years for YouTubeTV and not looking back.  

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After 18 straight years with U Verse, I made the switch to Charter High Speed Internet and youtubetv.com back in February. Best home service decision ever. My internet is way faster, I have every channel I need and can watch anywhere on my phone or ipad, and I am saving over $100/month!!!!!! Separately, I also pay less than $15/month for the additional streaming package of ESPN+, Disney+ and Hulu and have Netflix and Amazon Prime. I use Amazon Fire sticks to on all my TVs to access everything. I cannot fathom needing any other media at this point. 

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1 hour ago, davidnark said:

After 18 straight years with U Verse, I made the switch to Charter High Speed Internet and youtubetv.com back in February. Best home service decision ever. My internet is way faster, I have every channel I need and can watch anywhere on my phone or ipad, and I am saving over $100/month!!!!!! Separately, I also pay less than $15/month for the additional streaming package of ESPN+, Disney+ and Hulu and have Netflix and Amazon Prime. I use Amazon Fire sticks to on all my TVs to access everything. I cannot fathom needing any other media at this point. 

I cut the cord at the end of March and have almost the same as you. I have Spectrum internet with Youtubetv, Amazon Prime (which I had anyway), Netflix, and ESPN +. You have Hulu and Disney which I don't but I added Philo about 2 months ago. It's $20 per month and has a few channels I watch that Youtube doesn't. I rarely have a streaming issue and am saving about $50 a month and have better service 

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13 hours ago, FromDaEastSide said:

If you have Fiber, you might want to check the age of your modem and/or wireless router. We upgraded to a Mesh Router with one satellite and our modem since they were out of date. It made a load of difference and no lag on the stream. Also, just dropped DirecTV after 20 years for YouTubeTV and not looking back.  

 

12 hours ago, Billiken Rich said:

Run some cat6.  Wired is the only way to fly.....

 

14 hours ago, dlarry said:

F those people. I’m getting mad just thinking about it.

 

 

 

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My wife and I do not have any choice other than dish because we live in the middle of nowhere rural.

Is there anyone out there that would know any other options?

Streaming with the dish internet is not possible because of the 50 gig data limitation.  Dish type internets advertise unlimited data however the first 50 gig is at 15 M speed and after 50 gig 1 M speed making it impossible to watch anything.

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1 hour ago, CBFan said:

My wife and I do not have any choice other than dish because we live in the middle of nowhere rural.

Is there anyone out there that would know any other options?

Streaming with the dish internet is not possible because of the 50 gig data limitation.  Dish type internets advertise unlimited data however the first 50 gig is at 15 M speed and after 50 gig 1 M speed making it impossible to watch anything.

CBFan, This is gonna sound so dumb because I don’t even remember the name of the company, but I distinctly remember seeing commercials here in STL where they literally start the advertisement with “Still think you can’t get high speed wireless internet when you live in the middle of nowhere (not they’re exact words, but you get the idea).” I don’t how effective they are, but I do they exist. I’ll do a few Google searches (about the extent of my internet capabilities) and see what I can find.

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5 minutes ago, Reinert310 said:

CBFan, This is gonna sound so dumb because I don’t even remember the name of the company, but I distinctly remember seeing commercials here in STL where they literally start the advertisement with “Still think you can’t get high speed wireless internet when you live in the middle of nowhere (not they’re exact words, but you get the idea).” I don’t how effective they are, but I do they exist. I’ll do a few Google searches (about the extent of my internet capabilities) and see what I can find.

I just did a search and now I remember the ad I saw was for HughesNet which looks to be your 2nd best (of 2 options lol) for high speed satellite internet. Here’s a link to the website to look at a few other options they have. Hope it helps. https://www.reviews.org/internet-service/best-internet-for-rural-areas/

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2 hours ago, CBFan said:

My wife and I do not have any choice other than dish because we live in the middle of nowhere rural.

Is there anyone out there that would know any other options?

Streaming with the dish internet is not possible because of the 50 gig data limitation.  Dish type internets advertise unlimited data however the first 50 gig is at 15 M speed and after 50 gig 1 M speed making it impossible to watch anything.

I am in the same boat in North Carolina. I have to stay with the Directv.

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