Directv vs Blue Ridge Comm, Harrisburg Area

MrDad0330,

Has it been a year already?

Wow!

I responded to your thread from a year ago.

I just reached my 20th anniversary with DirecTV (now AT&T or, as I refer to it, AT&T’s DirecTV) on March 4, 2018.

I have stayed because AT&T’s DirecTV came up with more upgrades on the linear SD-to-HD programmers especially over the last year. Among them: American Heroes Channel HD, Discovery Family HD, FX Movie Channel HD, Great American County HD, and Universal Kids HD. (Universal Kids used to be Sprout.)

My area providers—and this is Detroit, Michigan—in addition to satellite companies AT&T’s DirecTV and Echostar’s Dish Network (or is it just Dish?), are AT&T U-verse, Comcast, and Wide Open West (WOW). I am with the provider which comes closest to meeting with my No. 1 want: linear programmers’ HD.

I am glad to read what people have written and posted here about other choices. A number of ex-AT&T’s DirecTV subscribers are in areas with Verizon FiOS. They moved over there and posted about their experiences. So, it is good to read up for people’s insights.

Thank you for sharing your experience here!

 

I bought a new house, in a 10 year old subdivision in March 2017. The subdivision had just gotten cable fiber from Mediacom installed in January/February of 2017. I got their internet service, and had Dish installed since I figured it worked so well. About a month later Mediacom made me an offer I couldn't refuse. Their version of a Tivo with 2 Tivo Minis and all their channels, including the Premiums for $80/month more than I was paying for internet alone including all the taxes and fees their cable system has. That represented a huge savings over the combo of Dish and Mediacom for internet and TV. Compared to today's Dish new/returning customer offers, it is about $80/month cheaper than the combo.

I ended up dusting off my Tivo Roamio and giving them their equipment back as theirs didn't have most of the streaming services I use, didn't support out of home streaming and unified search only covered cable channels and Netflix. I ended up shuffling things around when Black Friday sales showed up and now have a Tivo Bolt+ and Tivo Bolt in the system, so savings have been offset a bit because of that. Still saving over $50/month.

While I still think Dish's Hopper 3 is the cat's meow, it isn't $50/month better! And looking forward, assuming no 'special' deal with Mediacom, when the 2 year contract runs out their full retail price is still less than Dish or Directs new/returning customer offers. I have no doubt that I'll be able to negotiate some 'special deal' when the time comes though have no idea exactly how good it will be.

HD PQ is on par with Dish/Direct and SD is vastly better than both though I don't watch much SD. Channel selection is on par with Dish, and with the exception of some sports, is also on par with Direct. While I do watch a fair amount of sports, I don't follow any team so better sports coverage has little to no value to me. The Tivo boxes are as good overall as Dish's equipment though there are differences that are better/worse on each, but the Tivos are better than Direct's equipment, or at least better than any Direct equipment I had in the past.

 

How is the number of HD channels on your Mediacom? Where I am there are still a lot of SD only channels - FXM, TCM, Sundance being the ones I watch the most that are SD. Wondering if that's due to my headend or if those are missing on Mediacom everywhere and we just need to wait for them to redo the contracts...

 

I have IFC in HD, Sundance in SD and no FXM although I swear I saw that one at some time, or I'm old and misremembering.

I don't watch Sundance at all so I had to dig around.

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found FXM and TCM, both SD only unless I'm missing it.

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OK sounds like you have pretty much the same lineup I do. They added IFC in HD last fall I think. Guess it will be a matter of waiting on FXM, Sundance and TCM, same game Directv customers play waiting for contracts to bring them HD, just with different channels...

 

I’m in the Lehighton are of PA, I find Blue Ridge provides very good service and hd quality seems pretty much on par with D, TiVo whole home is good too, the problem is with Directv I’m now getting $25 off for life because I have att unlimited plan plus free HBO for life that’s another $15 off my directv bill so I’m essentially saving $40 for life. Blue Ridge just costs more even with the lower priced internet for having Blue Ridge for internet and TV.


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I had Blue Ridge cable when I first moved to Hawley a few years back--it was terrible. Half the programming wasn't even in HD and had black bars on the sides! They're also crazy expensive. I still use their internet service (no choice here) and it costs twice as much for 1/3rd the speed I was getting in NJ. Is all of their content in HD now?

 

They upped their HD count when they converted to all digital earlier this year. But like all other providers there's some channels DirecTV has that they don't, and a few they have that DirecTV doesn't, along with a bunch they don't carry at all.

As for the internet pricing, you can also blame Verizon, who refuses to deploy FiOS to the area, along with having a bogus 3 Mbps restriction for remote terminals, resulting in a lack of actual competition for internet in most of Blue Ridge's territory. Compared to NJ where FiOS is widely available, so Optimum and Xfinity have to provide competitive pricing across their entire NJ territory.