Farewell

[Dr. Personality]

I'd had DirecTV since before the turn of the century. I canceled it
today. It has gotten too expensive -- more than $200/mo, even before
another rate increase next month. We now have an Xfinity bundle that
includes very fast internet and costs less than half of what I'd been
paying just for DirecTV.

I never thought I'd go back to cable, but here I am. The DirecTV DVR
is better, but not so much better than I want to pay an extra $100+ a
month for it and not get fast internet.

I also got rid of our landlines today. They'd become nothing but
conduits for junk callers, and I was very, very tired of paying for
being harassed by crooks.

Goodbye, then. I've been in this newsgroup for many years and, even
though there's very little posting going on these days, I used to find
the people here to be very helpful. My deepest thanks, wherever you
are.

[nob...@nada.com]

If you call DirecTV and ask for the Loyalty Dept, and tell them you
want to cancel service, they will offere you some really substantial
discounts. My DirecTV with HBO and Showtime is never over $100
including Whole Home and all other fees.

[Dr. Personality]

In article <qp3u1etoiamo4uto2...@4ax.com>,

Thanks for that. They did offer me discounts, but the best rate they
came up with was $139/mo. (That was about $80/mo less than I'd been
paying.) It didn't really matter what they offered me, though. I
wanted fast internet, and the only way to get that here is through the
local cable company. (I live in the boonies.) I'm saving about
$120/mo over what I'd be paying if I hadn't packaged. Before now all I
could get was DSL, which on a good day was running 3.8 Mb/sec. Now I'm
running up to 400 Mb/sec. It used to take me about three and a half
hours to download an iPhone iOS update, and I'd let it d/l overnight.
I brought in 10.1.2 the other evening in about three minutes.

I'd become disenchanted with DirecTV in any case. We used to get a new
channel or two almost every month, and something would often go HD
about as often. That doesn't happen anymore. Worse, the service on
local channels was sporadic. Chatter and dropouts unrelated to weather
had become commonplace.

The channel lineup is a little bit sparser on local cable but, so far,
I'm not missing anything. The only thing missing that my wife liked is
the Cooking Channel. That's not worth a hundred bucks or more a month
IMHO.

One mildly surprising thing is how good some of the commercials for
local merchants have gotten, at least technically. Twenty years ago,
they'd just put up a still frame with a name and address and so on.
The ads have become rather elaborate.

Thanks again.

[Ed Pawlowski]

On 12/20/2018 5:06 PM, Dr. Personality wrote:
> I'd had DirecTV since before the turn of the century. I canceled it
> today. It has gotten too expensive -- more than $200/mo, even before
> another rate increase next month. We now have an Xfinity bundle that
> includes very fast internet and costs less than half of what I'd been
> paying just for DirecTV.
>
> I never thought I'd go back to cable, but here I am. The DirecTV DVR
> is better, but not so much better than I want to pay an extra $100+ a
> month for it and not get fast internet.
>

I reluctantly joined you. We moved away. I now have Spectrum but don't
really like it. I was paying $144 for DTV and now will pay about $150
but save the $85 phone and internet I was paying.

A big factor is the whole house setup I had where we could watch
recorded programs in any room. We'd often go into the bedroom and watch
a recorded show but now have to do it in the same room as the DVR. The
Spectrum remote sucks too.

We still have a landline for various reasons. I get as many junk calls
on my cell so that was n0t a factor.

They all suck.

[Dr. Personality]

In article <HbVTD.27528$qC3....@fx28.iad>, Ed Pawlowski

<e...@snet.xxx> wrote:

> On 12/20/2018 5:06 PM, Dr. Personality wrote:
> > I'd had DirecTV since before the turn of the century. I canceled it
> > today. It has gotten too expensive -- more than $200/mo, even before
> > another rate increase next month. We now have an Xfinity bundle that
> > includes very fast internet and costs less than half of what I'd been
> > paying just for DirecTV.
> >
> > I never thought I'd go back to cable, but here I am. The DirecTV DVR
> > is better, but not so much better than I want to pay an extra $100+ a
> > month for it and not get fast internet.
> >
>
> I reluctantly joined you. We moved away. I now have Spectrum but don't
> really like it. I was paying $144 for DTV and now will pay about $150
> but save the $85 phone and internet I was paying.
>
> A big factor is the whole house setup I had where we could watch
> recorded programs in any room. We'd often go into the bedroom and watch
> a recorded show but now have to do it in the same room as the DVR. The
> Spectrum remote sucks too.

I have whole-house with Xfinity. As with DirecTV, I have a mothership
DVR that communicates with two little subsidiary units elsewhere in the
house, where the other TVs are.

I'm still not used to the remote. I'm not in love with the interface,
and I really do miss the five-second backup button.

> We still have a landline for various reasons. I get as many junk calls
> on my cell so that was n0t a factor.

I get junk on my mobile but, unlike my landlines, I can easily filter
it so the phone doesn't even ring. I set the phone to ring only if the
number calling is in my contacts.

> They all suck.

No argument from me about that.

BTW just got an email from DirecTV. They want the Genie DVR and the
two Genie Minis back within a couple of weeks. (I knew this already.)
I'm to bring everything down to FedEx or The UPS Store in a box or a
bag or something, let them package the hardware for me, and ship it off
at no charge. I'll do it at the end of the week because the next few
days are going to be hell on shippers.

Thanks for your input, Ed.

[Co_Beachbum]

"Dr. Personality" wrote in message
news:241220180031364566%aff...@no.com.invalid...

Make sure you get and keep the receipt you get from FedEx/UPS. They
apparently are in the habit of not shipping until they have a crate full,
meaning DTV doesn't receive them in a timely manner, and will want to blame
you for not returning them.


John
--
* I promise I will format my posts properly in the future.
* Windows Live Mail just can't quote! Luckily, I have found this:
* http://www.dusko-lolic.from.hr/wlmquote/

[Dr. Personality]

In article <pvtlg1$or0$1...@gioia.aioe.org>, Co_Beachbum

Sounds like great advice. I'll do that. Thanks, John.