Upgrade Advice - 722k to Hopper

[Smartkid]

Hmm ok, sent a message to @dish_answers to see whats what.

Let me know how you go. I'm traveling this week so won't be able to get much traction.

 

[wormil]

I've tweeted dish and never received a reply so I don't know if anyone is minding the store.

 

[xyz38]

I just upgraded from an old two tuner receiver, one HD and one SD. I have been out of contract since 2011.
I upgraded to the Hopper3 and a wireless Joey for a $22, $15 for the hopper and $7 for the joey, increase in my bill. No upgrade fee.
They sent me a copy of the agreement that I signed on the installer's smart phone. I can not find that I started a new contract on the agreement, but am not sure if I did or not.

 

[HipKat]

I just upgraded from an old two tuner receiver, one HD and one SD. I have been out of contract since 2011.
I upgraded to the Hopper3 and a wireless Joey for a $22, $15 for the hopper and $7 for the joey, increase in my bill. No upgrade fee.
They sent me a copy of the agreement that I signed on the installer's smart phone. I can not find that I started a new contract on the agreement, but am not sure if I did or not.

The tech should have informed you if the Agreement was a DHA 24 Month or a DIU - No Commitment. You can probably just call Dish and ask

 

[charlesrshell]

I just upgraded from an old two tuner receiver, one HD and one SD. I have been out of contract since 2011.
I upgraded to the Hopper3 and a wireless Joey for a $22, $15 for the hopper and $7 for the joey, increase in my bill. No upgrade fee.
They sent me a copy of the agreement that I signed on the installer's smart phone. I can not find that I started a new contract on the agreement, but am not sure if I did or not.

When you go into your mydish.com account in the left hand menus, do you see very last menu that says Preferred Customer Offer? Mine has the latest start date for the two year commitment.

 

[ChadT41]

That's for the preferred customer offer though, isn't it? Not for a DIU

 

[charlesrshell]

That's for the preferred customer offer though, isn't it? Not for a DIU

Well, I don't know. Mine has the latest date that I did a major change to programs. So I take it I have a two year commitment from that date. Maybe that is not correct. Attached is what mine says.

 

[ChadT41]

That's the preferred customer offer. For the price lock, not for equipment.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Why don't you get a Roku and get your international channels streaming?

That will cut a significant costs there, then call them and threaten to cancel and watch the bill to go down further.

The hopper is ok, but I think your going to see more fees opposed to sticking to your 722

 

[Zorlac]

Let me know how you go. I'm traveling this week so won't be able to get much traction.

So I contacted @dish_answers via DM and told them I wanted an upgrade. I started with Dish back in 2004, upgraded to a 722k/2x211ks in 2011. Since I was a loyal customer the deal was a 2 year contract, $100 installation cost plus $25 for a wireless Joey. And I got a $7 reduction in my monthly bill too. So about $135 after taxes for a Hopper 3, 1 Joey and 1 wireless Joey. Took about an hour over Twitter DMs but I had an appointment booked on Friday afternoon

One thing I hadn't considered (and was not made obvious when I was thinking of upgrading) was that you need RG6 Coax since the H3 has 16 tuners. The coax in my house was RG59 so it didn't have the bandwidth available. I would have greatly preferred having the Hopper 3 base unit in my den where there is plenty of space to hid a rats nest of cables, but there just wasn't a feasible option to fish new coax to that room. Note that the Joeys don't need RG6 because they feed off of the Hopper 3, but the Hopper 3 itself needs RG6.

The tech and I agreed to pt the Hopper 3 base unit in my office/gameroom which is upstairs because it was easier to drill a new hole to feed the RG6 from the dish to the H3. But that also meant having the Wireless Access Point device sitting on top of the H3, and since I have international channels theres some other clunky piece of hardware I gotta deal with. It'll have to do for now but I would much rather have the H3 elsewhere along with all the other crap that goes with it. Gonna look around to see what it'll cost to replace the coax in the den with RG6 so I can move the H3 and AP etc because right now its just a mess.

 

[HipKat]

So I contacted @dish_answers via DM and told them I wanted an upgrade. I started with Dish back in 2004, upgraded to a 722k/2x211ks in 2011. Since I was a loyal customer the deal was a 2 year contract, $100 installation cost plus $25 for a wireless Joey. And I got a $7 reduction in my monthly bill too. So about $135 after taxes for a Hopper 3, 1 Joey and 1 wireless Joey. Took about an hour over Twitter DMs but I had an appointment booked on Friday afternoon

One thing I hadn't considered (and was not made obvious when I was thinking of upgrading) was that you need RG6 Coax since the H3 has 16 tuners. The coax in my house was RG59 so it didn't have the bandwidth available. I would have greatly preferred having the Hopper 3 base unit in my den where there is plenty of space to hid a rats nest of cables, but there just wasn't a feasible option to fish new coax to that room. Note that the Joeys don't need RG6 because they feed off of the Hopper 3, but the Hopper 3 itself needs RG6.

The tech and I agreed to pt the Hopper 3 base unit in my office/gameroom which is upstairs because it was easier to drill a new hole to feed the RG6 from the dish to the H3. But that also meant having the Wireless Access Point device sitting on top of the H3, and since I have international channels theres some other clunky piece of hardware I gotta deal with. It'll have to do for now but I would much rather have the H3 elsewhere along with all the other crap that goes with it. Gonna look around to see what it'll cost to replace the coax in the den with RG6 so I can move the H3 and AP etc because right now its just a mess.

The Access point doesn't have to be at the Hopper. Where there is cable that can be attached to the Hub, including where the Joey is, a HIC (Hopper Internet Connector) can be used with the WAP attached to the HIC as long as it's in range of the Wireless Joey

 

[Zorlac]

Not sure I follow. My cable modem, router (Apple AirPort Extreme) and Synology NAS are on the bottom level of my house in the utility room because I have the cable coax in there, so its a nice and tidy location. From the router I ran an ethernet cable up to my office to a gigabit switch. The Hopper gets internet from the ethernet and the Access Point2 is plugged into the Hopper 3. How would a HIC reduce clutter ?

 

[HipKat]

Not sure I follow. My cable modem, router (Apple AirPort Extreme) and Synology NAS are on the bottom level of my house in the utility room because I have the cable coax in there, so its a nice and tidy location. From the router I ran an ethernet cable up to my office to a gigabit switch. The Hopper gets internet from the ethernet and the Access Point2 is plugged into the Hopper 3. How would a HIC reduce clutter ?

Because the HIC/WAP doesn't have to be at the Hopper

 

[Smartkid]

I haven't thought about the wiring that the upgrade necessitates so will have to take a look. I thought it would be as simple as removing and/or leveraging the existing wiring.

I have the 722k in my den and the wire is feeding through to wall from the Dish (which happens to be on the same side of that wall so not very far away.) Then I have another wire running directly from the Dish down into the basement for the 2nd TV. That is a convoluted set up so hopefully the wire can just be reused. I have a third wire running into another room where the new TV has been set up. It used to connect a 622 directly to the Dish. I was hoping to use wired Joeys but can always use wireless ones if easier. There is not Ethernet cable connected to the 722k. (And it would be very challenging to do so because the internet connection is from the 2nd floor.) So I'm not sure what I'm missing. Might need to look at an installation diagram.

On the point about international channels - yes, I know the cost is steep. I actually tried a SlingTV trial earlier this month. It's my parents that watch those channels and they could not get by with the Sling interface or DVR. I wasn't too impressed by the PQ either.

I haven't been able to find a DIRT member active on this forum so am going to call customer again and see how I fare.

 

[charlesrshell]

Well, I don't know. Mine has the latest date that I did a major change to programs. So I take it I have a two year commitment from that date. Maybe that is not correct. Attached is what mine says.

ChadT41 & xyz38, I called DISH and asked for my commitment date. My date is 01/07/2020 which is 24 months from the date that is in mydish.com account in the Preferred Customer Offer menu. The CSR confirmed that is a way to tell what the commitment date is since it isn't no where else to view. Do you see the Preferred Customer Offer in your mydish.com account? If so, does the date seem about right for your commitment date?

 

[xyz38]

I do not see the preferred customer offer in my account.I saw your attachment but don't see that in my account.
Will probably have to call them. The upgrade date of 6-6-18 is there under the "my equipment".
I have had Dish 2009.

 

[ChadT41]

Charles... was your last contract started due to the preferred customer vredit(price lock for 24 months) OR upgrade of equipment? If it was the preferred credit offer, then it will show up. Equipment(DIU) contracts DO NOT show up. That is why I was asking.

 

[charlesrshell]

I do not see the preferred customer offer in my account.I saw your attachment but don't see that in my account.
Will probably have to call them. The upgrade date of 6-6-18 is there under the "my equipment".
I have had Dish 2009.

You will have to call to find out your commitment date.

 

[charlesrshell]

Charles... was your last contract started due to the preferred customer vredit(price lock for 24 months) OR upgrade of equipment? If it was the preferred credit offer, then it will show up. Equipment(DIU) contracts DO NOT show up. That is why I was asking.

Thanks ChadT41. All I did was called and did some exstensive program changes. I guess that is why I have that Preferred Customer Offer menu button to click and then I see the date I did the changes.

 

[Smartkid]

Hi guys

I spoke to retentions and the best that they could do was waive the $100 H3 upgrade charges and they recommended that I slim down my international programming to save the extra DVR costs from the Hopper and Joey. Not great because I have to give up some channels but I agreed to it. I have deferred installation until Saturday so I can think about it some more.

They said I don't qualify for any customer discounts except $8 off for 6 months, which doesn't seem like much. Also no discount for autopay.

The other thing that was incorrect from my discussion with CSR last week - unless the cost of the packages changed within the last week - was that they had recommended changing to the Americas Top 120 pack for $74.99, which I wanted to do because it had extra channels and would cost the same as my current programming (Dish America Silver plus Locals). On today's call they are saying that it would cost $79.99 and they have no record of the $74.99 that was originally discussed, so I kept the Dish America programming.