American Direct to Cease Operations

[paz]

American Direct, which provides DNS for Direct customers, will cease operations on Feb. 25, 2014. See announcement HERE.

The FCC banned Dish from providing DNS several years ago because of alleged abuse, so Dish mobile customers have been relying on American Direct. Unless Dish can win back the right to provide their own DNS, this will leave their mobile customers without network channels.

[CLIFFTALL]

I'm confused. When you say Direct customers , do you mean DTV ?

[Route 66]

That would be Dish Network.

[CLIFFTALL]

I thought so. The " Direct " part might have confused others. Thanks.

[paz]

Originally Posted by paz

American Direct, which provides DNS for Direct customers, will cease operations on Feb. 25, 2014. See announcement HERE.

The FCC banned Dish from providing DNS several years ago because of alleged abuse, so Dish mobile customers have been relying on American Direct. Unless Dish can win back the right to provide their own DNS, this will leave their mobile customers without network channels.

That should have been DISH. Sorry for the confusion. My fingers must have gotten confused by typing American Direct and typed Direct again instead of Dish.

[SeeTheUSA]

Bummer! Have enjoyed the distant locals for years. Now will have suffer through the process of calling Dish each time we move.

I just confirmed with Dish Network, will have to call:

800 894 9131 or 800 333 3474,

or do the "live chat" anytime between 6AM and midnight, MST.

If no cell or internet to give them your location, well, no locals!

[smiller]

Originally Posted by SeeTheUSA

Bummer! Have enjoyed the distant locals for years. Now will have suffer through the process of calling Dish each time we move.

It is a bummer to lose the option but more often than not local channels are available off-the-air so you really only need to change your Dish locals during those times when you are truly remote. And many/most Dish receivers with an internal OTA tuner or external module will display the OTA locals in the program guide right along the satellite channels, so there's no loss of functionality.

[UFO Pilot]

Lets say you are in the RV in Dallas and your home is in San Francisco. I have been told that when you call DISH to change your SERVICE address, they change all of your receivers. If this is true, do the receivers at home get switched to Dallas feeds or do they lose the network feeds altogether?

I hope this makes sense.

[TechWriter]

Originally Posted by UFO Pilot

Lets say you are in the RV in Dallas and your home is in San Francisco. I have been told that when you call DISH to change your SERVICE address, they change all of your receivers. If this is true, do the receivers at home get switched to Dallas feeds or do they lose the network feeds altogether?

Yep. I dropped DNS months ago when I found out about this. I just call DISH, change my Service Address to the local campground, and in a few minutes I get the local area's TV stations in HD.

You could also just try getting the OTA local stations, but changing your Service Address is a better bet.

[UFO Pilot]

In my example, will my family at home receive Dallas network feeds or lose network feeds altogether?

[smiller]

Originally Posted by UFO Pilot

In my example, will my family at home receive Dallas network feeds or lose network feeds altogether?

I would expect in your example that your entire account would be changed to a Dallas service address, and your receiver(s) would be set to receive Dallas local channels. So in your RV you would receive local Dallas stations, and at home (in San Francisco) you would lose all local stations because the receiver would be set to receive Dallas local stations but it would not be in the proper spot beam.

With regard to the suggestion that changing your service address being 'better' than using OTA, I can only point out that Dish provides the ability to change your service address at will on their discretion, and too-frequent use of this option by RV Plan users might cost Dish enough (in customer service support costs) that they may decide to limit or discontinue the option. My thought is that if you need to change the service address because you have no other good option then by all means do it, but if you're doing it every few days just to avoid taking 5 minutes to use OTA locals then you might be doing yourself and everyone a disservice by calling Dish unnecessarily. Honestly I don't really know if this is really the case, but I do know that if/when Dish does clamp down on this we will see no end of griping on the forum.

[TechWriter]

Originally Posted by smiller

My thought is that if you need to change the service address because you have no other good option then by all means do it, but if you're doing it every few days just to avoid taking 5 minutes to use OTA locals then you might be doing yourself and everyone a disservice by calling Dish unnecessarily. Honestly I don't really know if this is really the case . . .

Local TV spot beam areas are pretty big, so you'd have to really traveling to change locals "every few days".

[smiller]

I took the 'every few days' from some other post where changing locals multiple times per week was mentioned. I don't know how common that is (hopefully not very), but you could easily drive out of any of the local spot beams mentioned in the list in a single day.

[TechWriter]

Originally Posted by smiller

I took the 'every few days' from some other post where changing locals multiple times per week was mentioned. I don't know how common that is (hopefully not very), but you could easily drive out of any of the local spot beams mentioned in the list in a single day.

Regardless, I think you're worrying about a problem where there is none.