Sattle Up! — It’s Dish Network, Miami Style?
Upgrading to Dish Network + AT&T DSL and landline phone….no traps, just weird quirks in features.
As a recent Dish TV convert, I soon realized that many of the shows I watch start 2 hours ahead of their regular west-coast schedule.
This isn’t necessarily a bad thing…at least I get live shows when they’re live, not a 2 hour delay for us late-bloomers on the west coast.
I called Dish Network’s 800 number, and spoke with a tech. He confirmed that it was going to be that way, since they are based out of Miami, Florida.
Suprising with all the technology, that they can’t deliver the schedule time to other geographic locations — but I admit I know virtually nothing about how Dish TV works, it’s limitations et. al.
I like the interface for Dish Network better than Comcast or Charter (cable needs some serious UI upgrades if they want to compete).
Built-in picture-in-picture (although this requires the TV have a dedicated receiver), better searching and pre-view channel while browsing guide, and you can even preview 6 channels at once — although from what I can tell you get the 6 most popular. I couldn’t find a way to pick which channels I wanted to preview.
The built-in DVR is an excellent feature (still not available from Charter in my area). For the past 2 years I’ve been calling Charter every 3 months and they always say the same thing — “it’ll be here soon, in 3 months’ time”. Well, I got tired of waiting.
Next on my list of things to do is get an HDTV — costco.com had a 42″ for $500 today.
I also went with the bundle from AT&T for DSL, lanline phone (unlimited USA calling), and Dish Network — it all came to about $120/month, but the price is locked in — meaning that it won’t raise after the initial 18 months are up.
The AT&T landline plan was unlimited for US only, Canada was an extra $10/month for unlimited — kind of cheezy when Vonage, Packet8 and Skype give it all to you for one low rate.
What I have to do now is figure out how to get a cheaper Verizon wireless bill.
Update: — I had mistakenly read Comedy Central shows “Colbert Report” and “John Stewart Show” as starting 2 hours ealier…turns out those are the previous days shows…and have always been at that time. I find it amusing that Dish Network’s customer service rep (and the tech that I was handed off to) confirmed my observation and told me that the reason is because they are based out of Miami and that all shows would be EST. This however, is not the case.
