Satellite vs. cable (Mokena, Winnetka: house, neighborhood, tornado)

[Tree of Life]

Hi there, we're moving to Mokena from out of state. Should we go with satellite or cable?

I've compared cost and they are basically the same. I'm not interested in all the technical stuff - there are pros and cons to each.

I'd just like to know which people in the area prefer?

Thanks!

[chet everett]

I hate Comcast. I love DirecTV. The one company treats its "customers" like criminals, and stupid ones at that, while the other generally tries to deliver a high quality product at a simple to understand price. It is important to specifically let the scheduler know that kind of house you have, and what sort of installer you expect, but I have been MUCH happier with DirecTV than with Comcast.

I also have to say that despite living in a neighborhood with MANY large mature trees and having experienced some severe storms I have rarely experienced any service outages. Typically it has to be a "take shelter" grade storm and the disruption only lasts minutes. With TiVo I also have hours worth of stuff to watch during any downtime.

[Steve-o]

We've had Comcast for almost 3 years now and have no complaints whatsoever. Our remote broke twice (oddly) and they were friendly as ever to replace it and w/o issue. No problems with their TV or internet services. A+ for Comcast on my end!

[emmi605]

Just got rid of the DISH...lots of outages every time it rained pretty much. Signed up with the new UVERSE from AT&T. THere have been some problems getting it started, but overall the quality and picture are amazing! Lots of channels, TIVO, and fairly priced. If that is in your area I would recommend it.

[Careless]

I've never had a problem with Comcast, but I know that many people do. My father has DirecTV (cable is not an option there at the moment) and it's been pretty annoying. He was recently told he can't get a HD dish installed because of trees (and just try getting a tree cut down in Winnetka) and it seems that his dish has been slightly knocked out of allignment, as it is constantly losing signal now, even in calm weather.

I've been thinking about switching to AT&T's uverse thing, but that's not an option most people have at this point. It's significantly cheaper than cable.

[cohdane]

We had satellite in Boston, MA and whenever there was a big storm (rain or snow) it went out.

So here's my question to you: When the sky turns tornado green, the blizzard of the year hits or the wind sounds bizarrely loud in the middle of the night...are you going to want that TV to work?

Not saying there's a right or wrong answer, but it's something to seriously consider before making the choice.

[chet everett]

I trust weatherunderground.com and AM radio a lot more than any TV station. Even when Tommy Skillethead is going off on a fascinating tornado watch odds are that'll be nowhere near me.

There are sirens all over the western 'burbs too if anything really pops.

Even Greensburg KS had 20 minutes of warning before they were leveled by that F5 storm.

[tcs1366]

Originally Posted by chet everett

I hate Comcast. I love DirecTV.

I'm just the reverse.

when we moved here we could not get cable, so we had no choice but to go with Comcast... we had issues about that .... but got over it eventually.

one thing that gets me... the weather channel. I absolutely HATE the weather channel on Dish. On cable, it is for my area/town.

I have Dish at our place in Wisc, and the weather 'details' is for a town that is about 50 miles away. I can't get a local radar... the list goes on.

so, that is my main complaint about Dish. Though when we had it at home... they treated us like idiots. when ever the dish went out due to bad weather, they blamed us, not the ice, blinding rain or snow, high winds, etc. Ditch them like a bad habit as soon as we could.

just my 2 pennies worth....

[chet everett]

DirecTV and Dish have not merged. Different companies, different customer service. I have nothing praise for the way I have been treated by DirecTV phone reps, service people, installers. The guy that told me to get DirecTV is a total A/V freak and his advice was for a specific type of antenna with "triple LNB" and a specific brand of multi-input switch (Terk) so that I could watch in any of three rooms, two with TiVo. That is EXACTLY what the instraller brought out and it works flawlessly. I honestly have had no problems with outages in all but "torrential" thunder storms.
Top notch.

[tcs1366]

We had DirecTv here at home for about 3 yrs
We currently have Dish Network in Wisc.... but it is a service thru a different company [Dairy Land Cable] {Odd because it's not cable, its a bunch of dishes.}
so i have never dealt with Dish Network, per se .... but i still dont like any dish.

BUT -- if it were a case where it's Dish or antenna - I'd go back to a Dish.