If you were the CEO of E*, how would you run the company?

1. First I would fix all the bugs in the 501 and offer an exchange program to Dishplayer owners for a 501 or other Dish receiver.

2. Consider the Dishplayer a dead product and turn all units off after 1 year. If the customers don't take the exchange, they are out of luck.

3. Take all the money that would have been spent on the Dishplayer and use it to upgrade my quality control facility.

4. Immediately stop all Charlie Chats and tech forums and begin to participate in these forums. Cheaper and easier.

5. Hire only CSR's with a degree in electronics and a Dish Network satellite system in their home.

Charlie and Company are so full of themselves that they feel they need the Chats so they can be TV stars in their own special way.

"Can a Dish Chat really be called a Dish Chat if nobody watches?"

I would fix the dp mess once and for all, and beta test new equiptement to death before shipping. Unhappy DP owners are a hazard to E by discouraging new subs from becoming E subs.

First and foremost I would open up the market and allow other set top box makers make Dish Network recievers.

I would still make Echostar units and keep them bargain priced and would only do promotions for Ecchostar boxes such as I like 9. If people want better quality boxes they WILL pay for them, if people want cheep service and cheep equipmen they will use Echostar equipment.

I would end all Chats, what good is having Chats when all promises (such as IFC/RC Split, 2 weeks for new Dishplayer software....) are broken.

I would eliminate many of the wasted channels such as 101 9988 and others which do nothing more then take up bandwidth.

I would move HDTV to the 110 satellite location after spot beams are launched.

I would create 3 / 24hour Public Access stations, where Echostar subscribers could send in homemade shows to be broadcast by Echostar. 2 of the channels would be lottery channels where home producers shows are entered iinto a lottery to determine their air time and slot for the next 4 months. 1 channel would be the popular access channels where viewers pick their favorite shows from the other 2 access channels to air here.

Thats all I can think of for now.

Scott

I strongly agree with Bob.

I would exchange all the DPs etc for DirecTivos and give each sub a free three month subscription to DirecTV for all their hassles. :lol: :evil:

Bogy, Id go one better on that idea: Exchange the DP's for DirecTivos or UTV; get Total Choice Platinum programming for free for 6 months; no fees for the DT/UTV for 1 year; and your choice of two sports packages for free for 1 year. Also, if you get a friend to sub to DirecTV, you can get a coupon to use on a free equipment upgrade (as long as its used by three years after the friend's sub gets started).

My worthless piece of JUNK DP has downloaded the guide 4 times today that we know of, and frozen on a snow screen once today, then looses whatever you have taped. Green power light flashes forever when this occurs, it never stops.

A E CSR screwup lately cost me my out of aea nets, and I am seriously considering cable.

Hey Bob - this is "you know who". I say bag the DP's and Dish, Bob. As much as you've said good things about that crappy company, it looks as though your patience with them has finally run out. All the warning signs from that company point in a bad direction. Even my 501 is getting buggy. That company is BAD news. Just BAD news.

Bob, if you do leave Dish for cable I only hope you have as good a cable company as I have to turn to.

AT&T cable:( I have had it with the bugs.

Dishnetwork is self-destructing. Charlie always bashed the cable companies for their poor service, now that E* has tons of subscribers, its doing the exact same thing.

Stop cramming for new subscribers and take just a second to care for your existing ones . . . word gets around . . .

I had it with DISH back in May after being stiffed on 5 (yes that's F I V E) install dates for my DISHmover (2 botched, 3 missed).

I went with AT&T digital cable on a brand spanking new rebuilt system. I will gleefully submit to whatever indignities I must to have DISH back. Tired of the snow. Tired of being lied to (dolby digital SURE WE GOT IT! S-video SURE WE GOT IT! once installed TOUGH LUCK DON'T GOT IT!). Tired of price increases, which since May have been larger than 4 years of DBS combined.

I agree btw that DISH should just eat the DP and replace it for the 501. MS is not going to do anything to fix the problems.

Lew Stead

Unfortunately E has become more like cable, in the technical end. Inattention to problems and its always the next upgrade......

Technically E ran a whole lot better when Mike Dugan was in charge. He is well known as a NO nonsense type of person when it came to solving problems. Throwing remotes down steps to check their durability, reaming folks out for stuff that should of been addressed. E needs more of that type to clean up the tech mess.

I will still have E in a sense, because of my lifetime sky angel sbscription.

I really dont want D and am in a quandry as to TIVO, their finances are poor and I dont want to buy someting and have them go out of business. Must have PVRs.

I am stopping at AT&T today, to return my burnt out friends cable box and pick up some info. Was going to get at home, but they have stopped signing up new subs.:(

Lost western nets.....

E CSR screw up:(

For fiancial reasons I went from annual to monthly pay. My wife is on disability from work.Told the first CSR to leave nets annual. So I wouldnt have to requalify. She said NO problem. Then dropped receivers and nets, 6 or 7 calls later to get it all straigtened out. Shortly thereafter got the recorded message from E that the nets were going away, and CSRs were no help at all.

Monthly pay in this case is a good thing, easy to walk away.

Incidently my friends who I sold DPs to, and fortuanetely its only 2 are hacked off at me because of the glitches.

E will get far worse if it becomes the only DBS provider, Thats why i am strongly againts E* merging with DTV

If Echostar merged with DirecTV, that will be the end of DBS period!!! Anyways, there is no chance of that happening anyways since both company's stocks have gone down and the offers made by Charlie and Rupert are less now than they were when they first offered. Charlie may state now that he's tightening the belts at Echostar to have a chance of a merger, but its all Charlie propaganda.

Bob, if money's tight may I humbly suggest that you drop back to a off-air antenna. I've had my share of lean periods and one less monthly bill can make a difference. Also consider tightening up on long distance calls, cell phone contracts and magazine subscriptions. I hope everything works out for the better for you.

Well, for what it's worth, we dropped E* for Charter digital cable and disliked the digital interface and channel selection so much that we're going back to E*.

And happily so. I loved my venerable old model 3000 with it's clean, uncluttered, austere program guide and simple controls. I'm sort of marginally interested in a pvr, but I've always been one who can program a VCR pretty easily. I routinely record shows and the wife and I watch 'em after the little ones have gone to bed. So the pvr idea doesn't sound all that revolutionary to me.

I'm also setting up a big ugly dish to get whatever's still up there....

Finally, there's a thread over at DBSForums about Bob; I find that inappropriate.

If I was CEO of Dish Network, I would make sure ALL IRDs work as advertised and have full functionality w/o a series of s/w updates. I would replace all DPs with any reciever, that the cunsumer wants including the 6000, since some people may not want a 501. Or even programming credits. I would not have been as pro-LIL as Charlie was and Id make PQ #1 priority. I dont like the idea of 3rd party hardware mfgs, like D* has (w/execption of Hughes, of coarse) but if thats what it would take to make sure equiptment works then Im all for it. I also would not go on a LIE to 6+ millions subs. (Refering to March Charlie Chat when, Charlie said IFC would go 24/7, because RC 'ceased operations'.

Steve

Finally, there's a thread over at DBSForums about Bob; I find that inappropriate.

Yeah, I saw that too. I'm quite surprised that the moderators haven't closed the thread.

Yeah, I am gone but not forgotten.....

Bob, are you considering going with D*?

Steve

The thread was closed finally at DBSForums a few minutes ago.

D No not at this point. Although I want pvrs for sure, TIVOs shakey condition bothers me a lot. AT&T at home is also a mess. My annual for AOL is up and DSL is still not available at my address.

$ is tight with jen on disability. I am unsure what to do, but whatever I pick it MUST be bug free, for jen. She says she is a tv watcher not a technician:(

Bob, hopefully @home will come out of bankruptcy soon and allow people to sign up.

I'm a DirecTV subscriber and am not too familar with Dish Network equipment -- other than they being made by JVC and there being Dish PVR -- so let me ask: What is DishPlayer? Everyone here so far says it stinks. (Would someone mind briefly explaining? Appreciate it.)

I closed the thread at DBSForums,If I had seen it earlier I would have closed it earlier.I didn't feel it was right to be discussing Bob if he could not respond.

Bob,I'm glad to hear that your health is improving and you are feeling better,I hope Jen gets well soon also.

I understand your frustration with E*,but cable really......I would take a worst nightmare with E* then go back to TWC.

Jon

Bob Haller wrote...
D No not at this point. Although I want pvrs for sure, TIVOs shakey condition bothers me a lot. AT&T at home is also a mess. My annual for AOL is up and DSL is still not available at my address.

$ is tight with jen on disability. I am unsure what to do, but whatever I pick it MUST be bug free, for jen. She says she is a tv watcher not a technician

Bob, don't worry about DirecTIVO's shaky condition. It's mostly breed from the undervalued tech stock market bubble, which was previously over-inflated.

When I was buying my 2nd DirecTIVO this week, the salesman told me he sold 60 of these receivers THIS WEEK. Since they've sold out, but more are on order.

I trully believe that the internet will do for TIVO what it did for Dish Network a few years ago.

Also, after talking to one of the most informed reps from DirecTV that I've ever spoke to on the customer retention line,the DirecTIVO has really come though for them. I simply cannot imagine that the DirecTIVO service could ever become unsupported, ever. It's a stable and detail oriented master-piece of DBS technology.

Circuit City's $5/year warrenty is the fairest I've ever seen too.

As a DBS guy, most of the programming you like is probably there along with some things you've never considered.

Personally if my only alternative was cable TV I'd seek analog service only, and I'd buy a s/a TIVO to make it DBS-like. Of course the PQ won't necessarily be there.

If Jen is stuck home at least give her some nice toys. And with dual tuners no-one will miss any of their shows in your house.

If in NJ look me up!
Hey, clean the house, maybe we'll stop out there. I'm still wanting to do the tour of Pa's Route 6.

I wasn't going to respond to this one but the more that I think about it, I've decided to in hopes someone at DISH would read this that would give a ****!

First thing that I would do is to fix their EPG so that it would hold more than 2 - 2 1/2 hours of information without having to give that lame old excuse acquiring satellite information.
I feel that at a bare minimum that the thing ought to give you instant information out to 12 to 16 hours away without downloading once. More would be real nice too.
DISH says that part of the problem is memory problem. Just another case of the product not being ready for market. take it back and fix it .
I feel that this is one of DISH's weak spots and will eventually drive me away from Dish back to either DTV or cable.
Because of this feature I won't even recommend DISH to anyone.

I won't put out expenses for their DISH magazine to find out what is on. I feel that their receivers should work they way they are supposed to .

Dishplayer would be replaced with the subscribers choice of receivers.
The 501 would never have gone out the door into the customers hands without extensive testing, and therefore making sure everything was perfect, before distribution. They would function excellent out the door, out of the box, without having to promise software upgrades to fix the damn thing.

I would get rid of the new DISH FYI program and go back to the way they used to do it with Laurie Farkas.

Last but not least I would hire Tanya Meme This last part would be real nice, however the above comments before this would be an absolute.

Keep in mind CHARLIE word of mouth can make or break or ruin businesses.

The only confidence that most people have in your products is the fact that they will most absolutely be full of bugs and will not work very well at all.

Linked with the lame promises that the problems will be addressed very soon in the next software upgrade.


NOT!

Snagel,

People at Dish do read this forum. You can be sure of that.

A Bob thread at DBSForums.com? Don't blame me.

If I were CEO of E*, I would have cashed out and retired long ago.

>I understand your frustration with E*,but cable really......I would take a worst nightmare with E* then go back to TWC.<

The difference is that cable doesn't give a crap about extra charges or customer service, so you know what you're getting. DISH pretends to care until you're a customer...then they bend you over.

Sorry, but I disagree with your statement. I'd rather be screwed by someone you KNOW is going to screw you than to be surprised by someone that acts like your freind, THEN screws you.

But basically if they have an ax to grind that is OK. If anyone else does that need to be closed or deleted.

I guess this thread applies more than ever now.

First thing I would do is to send Charlie off on a long. long vacation to a place far, far away - a place where there is no DBS.

Then, I would send all the Hughes on the way with heir golden parachutes.

Then, I would raid Rupert's Sky company for some of that underpaid talent.

Next, I would get consortium, with Sony. Philips, Motorola and Scientific Atlanta to do a joint development "Mother of all STB's".

Then, I would go fishing and let my high paid gringos make it happen