DirecTV vs FiOS

[ChipAyten]

Can someone tell me the pros/cons of each? Which provider transmits the better signal? I've had it up to here with cablevision and I had poor experiences with Dish before plus I like DirecTVs Champions League coverage. How does the pricing compare for the different tiers? I'm leaning towards getting a package deal with DirecTV to get tv with them but internet from fios, I heard that's possible?

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[Jabroni]

Weather is a pretty big factor, as DirecTV is satellite and FiOS is fiber optic cable.

 

[patnyrnyg]

I switched from Time Warner to Fios and then switched back after 3 weeks. A week and a half after the installation, I moved my tv about 6 inches and the service went down, a wire broke. They came 3 days later to fix, technician said the original tech installed a weak wire and he gave me a stronger more durable wire. A week later, I came home from work and it was down again. Was going to be a week before they could come to my place to fix and they didn't offer evening or saturday appointments. I had already taken a day off from work for the initial installation and wasn't taking another. Called Time Warner, they gave me the same deal I was getting from Fios and then sent someone 2 days later.

 

[ChipAyten]

Weather is a pretty big factor, as DirecTV is satellite and FiOS is fiber optic cable.

Really in this day and age? My SKY signal almost never ever gets cut and that's in the UK where it rains all the time.

 

[NYRKindms]

FiOS = Internet, Phone and TV
DirecTV = just TV

I was a former DirecTV customer now with Cablevision

DirecTV has the better picture in my opinion BUT they had the WORST customer service I have ever dealt with and I was a LONG time customer.

Things were great when I just had the SD package from them with the occasional weather interruptions. Once I switched to HDTV is when things went south. When it worked it was awesome but it would go out or have picture issues a lot. They would send a tech out to look, he would say the previous guy was an idiot and make some adjustments rinse repeat.

I finally had enough. They were charging me like $100 just for TV. So for roughly the same price I switched to Cablevision and added the 50Mbps internet service (which they just bumped to 101). So I got TV and a 2nd internet connection for the cost of directv. Not to mention all the cablevision free wifi all over the place etc.

 

[ZacUSNYR]

Weather is a pretty big factor, as DirecTV is satellite and FiOS is fiber optic cable.

I always hear this. I have very little weather related issues with Directv. Sometimes during a bad storm we lose certain channels but not all.

A lot of people find it hard to believe, that most cable providers receive their programming, via satellite.

 

[ChipAyten]

I always hear this. I have very little weather related issues with Directv. Sometimes during a bad storm we lose certain channels but not all.

A lot of people find it hard to believe, that most cable providers receive their programming, via satellite.

Yup, whenever you drive past a TWC or CBV office there's an array of satellites albeit a lot more powerful than your standard roof dish. I drove past ESPN's campus once on a skiing trip and there had to of been a hundred satellites of varying sizes there. I guess they could transmit signals via the internet but it'd have to go through a ton of switches and nodes and traffic jams which'll degrade it's quality.

 

[NYRKindms]

Can someone tell me the pros/cons of each? Which provider transmits the better signal? I've had it up to here with cablevision and I had poor experiences with Dish before plus I like DirecTVs Champions League coverage. How does the pricing compare for the different tiers? I'm leaning towards getting a package deal with DirecTV to get tv with them but internet from fios, I heard that's possible?

Maybe it would be more helpful to post what exactly your issues with cablevision are ?

poor customer service ? Cost ? broken service ?

Most of the choices out there all have their flaws. If it is a technical issue perhaps we can help solve it

 

[Jersey Girl]

Wow, surprised to hear so many differing experiences. Strange.

We switched to DirecTV in 1999...here is our experience:

Weather: Very little outage...the storm has to be severely strong, and as soon as the violent portion of the storms ends and it goes back to just rain, the service comes back on immediately. Honestly, not sure if cable has changed, but when we had Cablevision we had more service outages (not usually weather related) than with DirecTV.

Customer Service is fantastic at DirecTV. It could have to do with the fact that we spend a fortune on sports (NHL Center Ice, NBA League Pass, ESPN college football Game Plan, ESPN college basketball Full Court, MLB Extra Innings, NFL Sunday Ticket), and we are on auto-pay and have been for years, but they are always giving us something free. I call every year in August and this year they once again gave me Game Plan for free, and gave us $345 in credits toward the $300 Sunday Ticket price...they're paying us $45 to receive every NFL and most every college football game!

Also, I have to mention the DVR. We have the genie HR34, which has five tuners (meaning you can record four shows and watch a fifth) and has over 200 hours of HD capacity. Wonderful.

One downside is DirecTV does not carry the Pac 12 networks, which bugs me...the Big Ten Network is fantastic, and I'm sure they'll pick up the SEC Network when it launches next year...I understand DirecTV is trying to keep programming costs down, but Dish does carry the Pac 12 Networks, so I don't see why DirecTV can't come to the same deal. Not sure if cable carries these or not.

As you stated, the Champions League (and also Europa League) coverage is phenomenal. Every game is shown live...every game! I also love all the additional tennis channels DirecTV gives you during the tennis majors.

A Cablevision rep shows up from time to time to try to get us to switch back to them. They've got to be kidding me...

 

[Jabroni]

Really in this day and age? My SKY signal almost never ever gets cut and that's in the UK where it rains all the time.

Honestly, I haven't had Satellite in probably 8-10 years and we didn't have the greatest dish calibration. Obviously the technology has improved. It just doesn't work where I live.

 

[Hunter Gathers]

It's not even a comparison if the prices are equal FiOS blows DirecTV out of the water in literally every aspect. If you are trying to do it on the cheap then DirecTV may be for you, but I cannot imagine ever actively choosing DirecTV over FiOS unless you just despised Verizon.

The picture is quite a bit better with FiOS. There are no outages. As poor as Verizon's customer service is, it is still better than DirecTV's (somehow).

 

[Kane One]

I never had FiOS but I had DirecTV and it's pretty horrible only because if the weather sucks, you can't watch TV. From what I hear, FiOS is amazing.

 

[Crease]

My only beef with FiOS is that they currently consider FXX an ultra premium sports channel. That means no The League or Always Sunny.

 

[ChipAyten]

My only beef with FiOS is that they currently consider FXX an ultra premium sports channel. That means no The League or Always Sunny.

Fox just used the Fox Soccer infrastructure to broadcast FXX on, it should change soon.

 

[bernmeister]

I think the only way we begin to get what we deserve as consumers is when we get directly (or as close as possible) from the content provider.

I've invested in a Sharp Aquos [always liked their product] but now with as a 'smart tv' with a computer built in. Haven't had the chance to completely figure out all my options, so I'm momentarily still on TWC. However, I understand for $80 yearly (plus you need your own wi-fi which I get scrambled from Netzero, like $50/month) you can get basic stuff plus through Aereo.

I understand some options exist like Hulu/Netflix, etc.
If we can go through the web, that might be best long term deal.

Any one with ANY experience/ideas in this regard, pls share.

Thanks.

 

[ChipAyten]

It'd be great if you only paid for the channels you wanted. $5/mo for the family of ESPN networks, $1/mo for TNT, $1/mo for CNN etc etc. But I'd presume the providers would lose a ton of money that way.

 

[Crease]

It'd be great if you only paid for the channels you wanted. $5/mo for the family of ESPN networks, $1/mo for TNT, $1/mo for CNN etc etc. But I'd presume the providers would lose a ton of money that way.

If forced to allow a la carte subscriptions, networks would just spread their popular programming across multiple channels.

 

[ChipAyten]

If forced to allow a la carte subscriptions, networks would just spread their popular programming across multiple channels.

Even so, i'll still be avoiding HGTV, Lifetime, HSN and all the other channels I'm paying for and never watch.

 

[Calad]

FiOS is amazing, when we made the switch from cablevision to verizon we NEVER looked back.

 

[kovazub94]

Was with DirecTV until I switched to FIOS 3 years ago and never looked back. Weather impact was one of the factors, triple play another and I think FIOS on demand was way better.

 

[patnyrnyg]

It'd be great if you only paid for the channels you wanted. $5/mo for the family of ESPN networks, $1/mo for TNT, $1/mo for CNN etc etc. But I'd presume the providers would lose a ton of money that way.

If they were forced to offer a la carte pricing, you would pay A LOT more for the popular channels. You'd probably pay $25/month for the ESPNs alone, probably $10-20/month for TNT/TBS, $20-30 for MSG/MSG+/MSG2, $15/month each (maybe more) for SNY and YES. Things like the History channel, Discovery, TLC, you'd pay $5-10/month and so on.

Yes, I have over 1000 channels, most I can't even name let alone watch. However, I am not really paying for those channels.

 

[OrbitalDynamics]

Been with FiOS since they lit the fiber in my part of Queens, never looked back.

The first time your HDTV pops on with FiOS and you see the clarity, you'll be amazed at how godawful TWC was/is.

We have Directv in all of the readyrooms at work and lose the signal when the first raindrops hit the roof.

 

[patnyrnyg]

I think the only way we begin to get what we deserve as consumers is when we get directly (or as close as possible) from the content provider.

I've invested in a Sharp Aquos [always liked their product] but now with as a 'smart tv' with a computer built in. Haven't had the chance to completely figure out all my options, so I'm momentarily still on TWC. However, I understand for $80 yearly (plus you need your own wi-fi which I get scrambled from Netzero, like $50/month) you can get basic stuff plus through Aereo.

I understand some options exist like Hulu/Netflix, etc.
If we can go through the web, that might be best long term deal.

Any one with ANY experience/ideas in this regard, pls share.

Thanks.

My wife and I have looked into dropping TWC. I bought a smart tv in august. However, currently there is no way to get live sports. If you buy the sunday ticket, for example through an XBox, the local broadcast is still blacked out. Not sure if the hockey package is available through XBox, but Rangers games would be blacked out in NY. If you live elsewhere then it would work. I already tried using one of the streaming sites through my smart tv, but it didnt work. Got on the site, clicked a game, but when I tried to choose the link, I received an error message saying I did not have enough memory.

 

[Jabroni]

Unfortunately there is no fiber optics here. Only Cablevision.

 

[MetalGodAOD*]

Of note, DirectTV Center Ice package blows everything out of the water. That's because they have direct feeds to the local networks, not the ****** feeds given to them by the parent company of Center Ice. Almost every game is in HD, with multiple Home/Away Feeds.

Fios got a lot better last year with their Center Ice options though. Almost every game was in HD by the end of the year, but not quite as good as DirectTV's.