Community Forums

csuder99 · 03-29-2021, 01:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by barmcd

You obviously don't live in a rural area. We live in the country and have internet through CenturyLink via old fashioned telephone wire. There are plenty of times when we can't stream TV from the internet because of incessant buffering. Until rural infrastructure improves, cutting the cord is just a pipe dream.

Don't know about Joel but I live in the rural "desert" 10 miles from a city with broadband cable. No wired options, and until recently I had a WISP connection at 10 Mbps for the low, low price of $120. Starlink is much faster for less money, and seeing how hard Dish is lobbying against Starlink you can tell they know their days are numbered. Similarly the GEO Internet providers are going down the drain, as are the small WISP.

SCVJeff · 03-29-2021, 02:16 AM

TPG got the cash to buy into this deal from the sale of a substantial stake in Univision. This was a company they bought with three other groups in 2008 for ~$13B with the intent to flip it for $20B (and were the laughing stock of wall street) all the while stripping company assets.. anything owned was sold and/or turned into a lease. Its a skeleton of its former self. I forget the exact sale number but IIRC its around $700mil. Expect the same performance from them here. They have no intention of rebuilding this service whatsoever.

docj · 03-29-2021, 06:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by csuder99

Don't know about Joel but I live in the rural "desert" 10 miles from a city with broadband cable. No wired options, and until recently I had a WISP connection at 10 Mbps for the low, low price of $120.

That's pretty much the same as for me. I have cellular service at ~5-15 Mbps as my only viable choices. I currently use three of those to provide a 24/7 internet connection capable of streaming video.

FWIW I live ~20 miles from a city with high speed fiber and ~100 Mbps cell service.

Atlee · 03-30-2021, 06:35 AM

How much does your internet service cost?

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2cyber71

I was one of the first Direct TV subscribers back in 1995
I quit many yrs ago when they cranked the price to watch TV up to $125/month
I use a OTA antenna and get 23 free channels, add all the free streaming, Netflix and Amazon Prime. I’m good. Oh, we add MLB every year too. Worth every penny to us.

Atlee · 03-30-2021, 06:39 AM

Most of these private equity companies are in the game to strip out and sell all the valuable assets, then sell the left over bones for what ever they can get out of it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by SCVJeff

TPG got the cash to buy into this deal from the sale of a substantial stake in Univision. This was a company they bought with three other groups in 2008 for ~$13B with the intent to flip it for $20B (and were the laughing stock of wall street) all the while stripping company assets.. anything owned was sold and/or turned into a lease. Its a skeleton of its former self. I forget the exact sale number but IIRC its around $700mil. Expect the same performance from them here. They have no intention of rebuilding this service whatsoever.

SCVJeff · 03-30-2021, 11:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atlee

Most of these private equity companies are in the game to strip out and sell all the valuable assets, then sell the left over bones for what ever they can get out of it.

Exactly

barmcd · 04-01-2021, 07:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Atlee

Most of these private equity companies are in the game to strip out and sell all the valuable assets, then sell the left over bones for what ever they can get out of it.

How are they going to do that? They only bought 30 percent.

SCVJeff · 04-09-2021, 03:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by barmcd

How are they going to do that? They only bought 30 percent.

How? All they have to do is get the other partner(s) to agree to whatever longterm plan to flip the company to yield maximum profit.
Or you can simply do a little research on what they and their partners did to Univision. The information is commonly known and published. This is an investment company that is not interested in the least of improving the operations of a company with a single service that has been dyeing for years.This is about maximizing returns of the investors.... period. I lived with these guys for 11 years. The days of facilities and equipment upgrades simply to maintain business continuity ceased the day TPG, Blackstone and others took over the company

JDT · 04-10-2021, 08:03 AM

I've read every comment in this thread. The consensus opinion is satellite tv days are numbered which I'm sure is obvious to anyone paying any attention to Direct and Dish. Opinions on internet service are varied, mostly based on the reality of some areas getting better service than others. Starlink may or may not be a game changer but the hope is there for a good outcome.

We recently tried to cut ties with Dish and go to strictly streaming at our home. This would have probably meant only having over the air channels in our fifth wheel as most of the campgrounds we frequent have woefully inadequate wifi.

We did a week trial with YoutubeTV and Discovery +. There may be better options but having to watch the commercials with anything recorded on YoutubeTV was maddening. In comparison, the old Dish Hopper 3 is simple to use and the ability to skip thru the commercials is really good for this impatient person. I paid for the commercial free version of Discovery + and the little we have used it has been good. We decided Dish is still our best option, especially for traveling in the fifth wheel. I was able to get them to lower our bill by $25 a month but had to agree to a 2 year contract, which doesn't bother me at all.

Internet service is another story. We have one option in our neighborhood and that is from the local cable company. To get the internet we need for streaming with unlimited usage raised our bill $46 a month. I absolutely hate dealing with them as they have the worst customer service of any company I have ever experienced. Their attitude is simply we are your only option, take it or leave it. I would bet there are others like me who hope someday for better internet options. I'm not sure Starlink is it but I can hope.

BillJinOR · 04-10-2021, 08:17 AM

Curious .. I can fast forward through any recorded YouTube tv program I have in my library ( recorded) , including jumping commercials. I wonder why you couldn’t.

Cooperhawk · 04-10-2021, 08:20 AM

We still have Dish because it's so convenient to use in the MH as well as the ability to record programs and skip through commercials, but we have had the same problems with our internet provider.

It's our telephone company and they have been terrible to work with. If we call with a complaint their main purpose is to get inside our home and then charge us exorbitant rates when the problem is usually outside and with their equipment.

Recently a new company has come to the area and they use towers and dish type receivers for the internet. They have a broadcast tower on the grain elevator a few miles away from us and they leap frog around to cover the area. We get our signal from a roof top repeater on the roof of the minister who lives at the head of the lake.

They came out one afternoon, installed a small dish that is pointed at the repeater, set up a modem, and in less than two hours we were set up. It works great.

Now with cell phones and this internet service we may drop the phone company. Good riddance.

taylorbob1 · 04-10-2021, 10:14 AM

I love having DISH in my RV
We enjoy “living” during our RV trips vs treating our RV like “camping”
So our RV is set-up like a 2nd home

Now...maybe satellite TV days are numbered. Many on this Forum keep telling me so.
But for today & the upcoming week...I really enjoy my DISH TV as it has many more features & conveniences vs Internet TV

JDT · 04-10-2021, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BillJinOR

Curious .. I can fast forward through any recorded YouTube tv program I have in my library ( recorded) , including jumping commercials. I wonder why you couldn’t.

I researched it and Youtube has to have an agreement with the particular channel to allow commercials to be skipped. Evidently the programs we were recording was not allowed on that channel which was our local NBC station. The wife records The Voice and a few others but waits to watch them to skip the commercials. She was a bit annoyed so I cancelled the trial.

geordi · 04-10-2021, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JDT

I researched it and Youtube has to have an agreement with the particular channel to allow commercials to be skipped. Evidently the programs we were recording was not allowed on that channel which was our local NBC station. The wife records The Voice and a few others but waits to watch them to skip the commercials. She was a bit annoyed so I cancelled the trial.

I use YoutubeTV exclusively now, dumped DirecTV after nearly 20 years. Skipping commercials is not an option.

I think I know what happened to you though, there is no issue with the network or any agreement to skip commercials. What happens is that there IS a setup where after 24 hours the "primary" recording that it shows to you switches
to a "VOD" or Video On Demand with the forced commercials. You can easily identify this by the yellow boxes in the scroll bar at the bottom of the playback window.

Now - there IS a way to stay with the live-recorded version that doesn't have forced commercial breaks. When you are selecting what program you want to watch, when you hit select on that episode, there will be a box underneath that says "choose version" and when you hit THAT - it will show either "DVR" or "VOD" and you want the DVR version. THAT is what will allow you to skip the commercials.

It's a bit different on each device, I use the Apple TV. But that is what you are looking for. Don't use the VOD options, and you shouldn't have any forced commercials.