Just some kudos for Dish -- good experience today

[samalex]

Just had a Dish technician come out today to repoint our dish since it had become out of aligned, and wanted to post the experience over all was great. Last night I worked with two different people on the phone as they talked me through checking everything out, and it was nice given both were in the US (at least sounded like they were) and both were very courteous despite me cooking dinner and wrangling my two tykes at the same time They couldn't get it working, just kept giving Signal Loss messages, so they said someone would come by today between noon and 5pm. Given I work I asked if they could call before coming out, and sure enough at 11:40am I got a call saying they were on their way.

The tech was wonderful, and he had the dish realigned in about 10 minutes. Also he noticed I didn't have broadband going to my DVR, and though I have a broadband connection behind our TV it's going to our BluRay player instead of the DVR... so he said he had a USB Wifi adapter he'd connect for me at no cost. I don't know if this is normal, but in about another 10 minutes we had my WEP password in and the DVR was on my network. I had been meaning to pick-up a network hub to do this, but he got me fixed up great.

So over all it was a wonderful experience.

The only weird thing, and nothing negative, is I asked the tech if he did FTA satellite installs on the side or if anyone else did it that he knew of, given I've thought about getting a Ku band system setup. He said there are no free to air sats anymore and the OTA antennas were the only way to get free programming... kinda caught me off guard since thanks to Sat Guys I'm somewhat familiar with the FTA options, plus he said he'd been doing Sat installs for about 15 years so I thought he'd know about FTA satellite options. Anyway just something odd.

At any rate I don't hear much positive about Dish anymore, so I thought I'd pass this along.

 

[Poke]

Cool sounds like they did a good job and went the extra mile..

 

[Claude Greiner]

Wow, im surprised they gave you a broadband adaptor as those cost around $25. I wonder if he got some sort of bonus for hooking you up.

 

[JamesC]

I make $5 for connecting a customer to broadband. Both for new installs and trouble calls.

 

[digiblur]

I really hope you meant to say WPA instead of WEP.

The script kiddies in this area hack all the wep routers in minutes and rename them if they can. Quite funny actually, as the owners then enable wpa. If they would have left the name alone they could have used the wep connection anytime they want since it is essentially wide open.

Sent from my C64 w/Epyx FastLoad cartridge

 

[KE4EST]

I really hope you meant to say WPA instead of WEP.

The script kiddies in this area hack all the wep routers in minutes and rename them if they can. Quite funny actually, as the owners then enable wpa. If they would have left the name alone they could have used the wep connection anytime they want since it is essentially wide open.

Sent from my C64 w/Epyx FastLoad cartridge

That is pretty funny.

 

[jawxx]

We are required to connect you to broadband if it's possible. And the equipment doesn't cost you anything and it comes out of our inventory without hassle as long as we send a status and get a confirmation code. The exception is routers. You have to purchase one if you don't have one.

 

[samalex]

I really hope you meant to say WPA instead of WEP.

Unfortunately not, our router is about 10 years old, and it only supports WEP. I've thought about doing MAC filtering, but honestly I'm not too worried about it. The admin page is password protected, so if someone wants to get Internet access bad enough more power to them for the effort.

Wow, im surprised they gave you a broadband adaptor as those cost around $25. I wonder if he got some sort of bonus for hooking you up.

We are required to connect you to broadband if it's possible. And the equipment doesn't cost you anything and it comes out of our inventory without hassle as long as we send a status and get a confirmation code. The exception is routers. You have to purchase one if you don't have one.

Good to know... but one thing I have to ask, could setting-up the USB Wifi adapter cause damage to the box? I'm not sure how, but last night when I turned on the DVR to check out the new streaming features thanks to now having Wifi I got a message that the Hard Drive had failed. I went through the steps of unplugging it and so forth but no dice. The tech who came out did verify the Dish was out of alignment so I don't think that was due to a HD failure, but just curious. Just seems odd that we've had the DVR for 4-5 years and after connecting the WIfi adapter the HD crashes. Again, not sure how they could be related but still odd coincidence if not.

At any rate I called support back and they're bringing out a new box on Saturday. Should I see if they have a VIP722K? We only have the VIP722 and we do use the OTA tuner, so if they offer me a VIP722K should I ask for the OTA tuner add-on? Seems like that was the only major difference between the two from what I've read.

 

[Dishman1978]

Unfortunately not, our router is about 10 years old, and it only supports WEP. I've thought about doing MAC filtering, but honestly I'm not too worried about it. The admin page is password protected, so if someone wants to get Internet access bad enough more power to them for the effort.

Good to know... but one thing I have to ask, could setting-up the USB Wifi adapter cause damage to the box? I'm not sure how, but last night when I turned on the DVR to check out the new streaming features thanks to now having Wifi I got a message that the Hard Drive had failed. I went through the steps of unplugging it and so forth but no dice. The tech who came out did verify the Dish was out of alignment so I don't think that was due to a HD failure, but just curious. Just seems odd that we've had the DVR for 4-5 years and after connecting the WIfi adapter the HD crashes. Again, not sure how they could be related but still odd coincidence if not.

At any rate I called support back and they're bringing out a new box on Saturday. Should I see if they have a VIP722K? We only have the VIP722 and we do use the OTA tuner, so if they offer me a VIP722K should I ask for the OTA tuner add-on? Seems like that was the only major difference between the two from what I've read.

I'm sure the dvr failure was a coincidence.

And as far as the wifi adapter, in-house techs in my office give away those free all the time. We are rated on 7 different aspects of each install and connectivity, recievers connected to the internet, is one of them.

I have even given away a router, 5 port switch, 2 wifi adapters and 2 slinglinks (powerline adapters) on one service call inorder to get connectivity to all recievers, as well as enough Ethernet cables to get all devices at the main TV connected to the internet.

This was before dish introduced Dish Smart Home Services. Now I can charge a fee and get credit for a sale for doing all this, instead of no credit like before.