Dumped Directv today. I wanted to upgrade to an HD set-up but all the fees and charges would take my bill up $45.00/month more. $10.95 to lease a new HD box, $10.95 for dvr programing, $10.95 to get a HD channel package, $5.00 to mirror to a bedroom box. PLus $75 to $125 to put in a new HD dish. Since Im a existing customer I get no deals. So I say bye-bye. Anybody out there have Dish network? Since I would be a new customer with them I think some good deals are out there.

My neighbor has dish is and he's mostly satisfied. Like anything else though, read the contract carefully. The rate you agree to may expire after 6 mo or a yr, the contract may be longer, giving them time gouge you at the end with a rate hike or a contract cancellation fee. the devil is in the details. Better business bureau doesn't have anything nice to say about any of them, cable, dish, direct, etc. Try to find someone in your area to see how often bad weather knocks it out.

My brother-in-law has been a long-time DirecTV customer, and he faced the same litany of extra fees when he wanted to add HD programming. Dish was offering comparable service for significantly lower cost. So, b-i-l called DirecTV and had a little chat with a rep about how they were about to lose a long-term customer to Dish because their prices were too high. After some debate with them, he got DirecTV to match the Dish pricing. Based on the number of promo flyers I get every week, I don't think any of these service providers are doing so great that they can't be persuaded to meet the competition's pricing.

My wife and I have been mostly satisfied with Cox Cable. We had digital cable before we went HD last November, so the cost to upgrade was only the difference in price between the HD box and the standard digital cable box ($6-7). One tier of HD channels was no extra cost over standard digital cable, and this was all the service we required. We don't subscribe to any premium channels, and we only need one cable box. We also added an HD DVR, so our monthly bill went up $17.

Ive been on antenna tv for a week or so now. Even though we had Directv I never realized how much we were still watching the locals. My wife only misses two channels QVC, and Liftime movies. The weekeneds are the roughest with antenna tv. Major sports are on which is good but, the other stations default to infomercials. I watched a few of them and they are worried about four things. First, the are worried about our weight, second they are worried about us not having rock hard abs. third tehy can make us all sorts of money by working a few miniutes a day. And last but not least they are very concerned about our bowels. thats life on the antenna.