Adobe is (was? is?) an industry-leading software company. Obviously, supporting that software is a very high priority, as it is among the only direct interaction they will have with their users, and if they don't provide it, people will buy something else (too much competition).
DirecTV has a lot more to support, and there's a whole lot more to go wrong. Adobe might release 2 dozen pieces of software a year, where DirecTV releases 2 dozen receiver submodels per year, plus has to do software, plus has to deal with the individual installed hardware (dish, switch, cabling), which is unique to each customer, plus interface with hundreds of TV channels/networks, plus downloadable content, plus "interactive" features, and on and on. And they have to make sure that their ancient receivers from 14 years ago still work.
And DirecTV doesn't think like an IT company, so they don't spend the kind of development money on support systems that an IT company does, and they aren't as good at it anyway. Having been at three big companies in Tech Support/Help Desk departments, and involved with the development of the support systems for them (using Vantive, Remedy, and Siebel), I can assure you that it takes 4 times longer than you would think, costs more, and never has enough money spent on maintenance.
And with the amount of call center employment churn, most CSRs just don't have a lot of experience.
In all those ways, DirecTV is just like every other non-IT company (and like many IT companies as well) in not putting enough importance on support systems. And if you could ask a company officer about it, they would tell you "we're working on it" and "we know we need to do better", but, bottom line, "we're obviously helping enough people that we continue to grow at a good rate every month." As long as that's true, they'll choose "good enough" because it looks cheaper on the books.
DirecTV has a lot more to support, and there's a whole lot more to go wrong. Adobe might release 2 dozen pieces of software a year, where DirecTV releases 2 dozen receiver submodels per year, plus has to do software, plus has to deal with the individual installed hardware (dish, switch, cabling), which is unique to each customer, plus interface with hundreds of TV channels/networks, plus downloadable content, plus "interactive" features, and on and on. And they have to make sure that their ancient receivers from 14 years ago still work.
And DirecTV doesn't think like an IT company, so they don't spend the kind of development money on support systems that an IT company does, and they aren't as good at it anyway. Having been at three big companies in Tech Support/Help Desk departments, and involved with the development of the support systems for them (using Vantive, Remedy, and Siebel), I can assure you that it takes 4 times longer than you would think, costs more, and never has enough money spent on maintenance.
And with the amount of call center employment churn, most CSRs just don't have a lot of experience.
In all those ways, DirecTV is just like every other non-IT company (and like many IT companies as well) in not putting enough importance on support systems. And if you could ask a company officer about it, they would tell you "we're working on it" and "we know we need to do better", but, bottom line, "we're obviously helping enough people that we continue to grow at a good rate every month." As long as that's true, they'll choose "good enough" because it looks cheaper on the books.
And I agree the Forum serves as a rant/answer/general information place and is VERY useful to people. This Forum is the best for Sat. information of all kinds period :sunsmile: However, at times that does slant what D* is really like because if you just read the Forum what you mostly see are posts about what is wrong. Because sadly most people don't post about all the things that D* does right 
