Cable TV vs Satellite TV

[old geezer]

---both have waaaaaay too many comercials---you pay good bucks for news , entertainment ,sports what ever , and the greed of big bussiness just wants to shove more adds down our throat-----ihave cable...

 

[Judy]

I had cable for years and years, then moved to a place where it's either satellite, antenna or no TV. If there is a heavy storm, it goes out, from somewhere between a few to maybe 20 minutes, then back on. I can't get ABC on satellite so I also have an antenna ($40 or so at Radio Shack, indoor.) But when the cable went out for whatever reason (someone cut a cable somewhere, somehow) it typically took 2 hours or more before it returned, on occasion much longer. If I could choose either, I'd compare prices and channels, and go with whichever offered what I want for less. Neither one is perfect, for sure.

Then there are phone and internet to consider, as well, because sometimes you can get a discount by packaging them, and there is a lot of price variation. You can wind up with all four on one bill, sometimes, depending.... It's complicated these days. And I don't even have a cell phone; that would probably complicate it further. I like my DSL internet, don't want wireless or satellite or dial up, so that means I need to buy.... you get the idea.

 

[jessica117]

I have experience with Charter Cable Company and Dish Network. The cable would go out at least once a week, and we lived right in town, for NO apparent reason. At least with Dish Network, when it goes out, I can look out the window and see that there is a GOOD reason for it being out... and the outages are few and far between. The biggest thing that makes me love my dish is that unlike the cable company, when I called to have it set up the gave me a price and low and behold when I got my bill... that was actually what they were charging me a month

With the cable company I knew that whatever they told me over the phone I could plan on paying roughly double that a month. I have been with Dish Network for 3 years and would recommend them to anyone 100 times over. Just my 2 cents

 

[EweSheep]

I love my DirectTV satellite and yes they would be BAD for bad weathers and it gets hairy when a tornado is up there and you have no way of knowing. At least hubby has a radio to listen.

With the local phone only, internet....all cost me $40.00 a month and DirectTV would be about $65.00 which hubby wants all those channels while I like the National Geo, Nature, SciFi, etc. We did away with long distance and if we have to make a long distance call, we would use the AT&T long distance calling card which you can find it at WalMart.

 

[Louise's Country Closet]

I must be one of the lucky few with my satellite. We always had cable until we moved up here and satellite was our only choice. We picked DirectTV and we love it. Even in pretty bad weather it hangs in there.. it's only when it's getting really bad that it goes out and it's usually not out for long. In our four years of having satellite this year was the first time it was out for 12 hours or so while the snow was melting off the dish. Now my satellite internet (not DirectTV) goes out in any weather fart there is..

 

[ChikeeMomma]

I'd say I have been the most happy with cable. At our old home, you could only get dish satellite -- Not my favorite. If it was too cloudy, if it was snowing too hard, etc it would go out and at that time you couldn't get local channels. We did cancel our service and I was quite happy with that, too! We currently have cable at our house now -- I wouldn't mind doing away with it. Our family watches less of it if we didn't have cable. When we moved into our current house, we went almost a year without any sort of tv -- just the radio. There was no cable run through here at that time and we knew we didn't want a dish again. I have to say that it was nice just to have the radio on (we did watch the news from time to time, but channels didn't come in that great -- we had a digital antenna). My hubby and I talk about cancelling our cable from time to time, but haven't done it yet. Our cable is through Parish Communications (not Charter). They are a local company unlike Charter.

As someone mentioned, you can watch television shows on the computer now. And indeed, I have. It worked out great.

 

[dawg53]

We have Dish, it's cheaper and more reliable than cable. Like others have already stated...Dish goes out during heavy rain. It makes me wish I still had my 7.5ft big mesh dish, severe thunderstorms didnt affect the big dish, too bad everything switched from analog to digital.

 

[Pelican49]

Quote:
We live in the sticks and without some service you get PSB... sorta. We enjoy TV and suffer no guilt from it.

Our only option out here is Satellite for both TV and internet. I like the prices and choices on DirecTV, but it goes out during heavy ice, snow, wind, rain etc. Actually it's not nearly as bad as Hugesnet for internet. It goes out if a leaf blows by. You're also limited to the number of downloads and uploads you can have in a 24 hour period. It took my daughter 3 days to download a game she purchased online since she had to keep stopping it until the next night.

If we had cable option we'd jump on it. The closest to us cable has gotten (we checked a while back) is 50 miles. <sigh> Personally I'd take the cable for both.

 

[ams3651]

in my area first off satellite is much cheaper and second of all cable doesnt run down my road so satellite is really my only choice. I went with Dish Network because I felt I got more channels for the money of what I liked. My grams has dish and my dad has direct tv so I got to compare. Compare packages and see who is best for you as far as the line up for the money.

 

[Me & My Peeps]

I have Direct TV, I dont have the usual problems that others state of "weather related issues". When the guy showed up to install it I gave him $50 and said "I dont care where you put it, even it it's on the mailbox. I dont want any problems with reception". Either I was lucky or the $50 did the trick, I have no issues at all.

But, I also climb up the ladder every 3-4 months and spray it with PAM or cooking spray. When it starts to rain or snow, it just runs right off.

As a fallback plan, if you have a fast connection - you can cable your computer to your TV and watch streaming TV that way,