Out With Cox Cable and In with Direct TV

We finally decided to switch to Direct TV from Cox Cable to get the Sunday NFL ticket. That is the only reason we switched and I hope it's a good move. This is something Gerard has been wanting for a long, long time so I finally agreed when I saw a special advertised through AAA. I called on Wednesday and the appointment for insatllation was set for Saturday.

When I called Cox to tell them we were switching to Direct TV, they pretty much talked me out of it. They have really good sales people in the "Termination" Department. Following are the points she listed:

1. If something goes wrong with their box, we have to ship it in and will be without TV for days since they have no local office here.

2. If it's bad weather where the football game is being played, we may not got a signal so won't be able to see the game anyhow.

3. There's a 2 yr. contract we have to agree to with Direct TV that we don't have with Cox. That's because people want to switch back.
At this point I was having some second thoughts.

I then emailed a co-worker who lives up the street and has Direct TV to see how they like it. She told my then never had any problems with it and if they did lose the signal on occasion, it came back in just a few minutes. She told me they never had to go up to brush snow off it. So at this point, I was convinced to switch over.

I called Cox back and got David this time who was very nice but again who gave me a couple more reasons why I shouldn't switch:

4. They have to rewire everything so if you do want to switch back, you have to have Cox come out to re-install it.

5. It's a big, heavy satelite dish that weighs 45 lbs. on your roof. (So what?)
He was very nice though and said that if I want, we can wait to have them disconnet the cable until after the Direct TV is installed to make sure it's what we really want to do after we see how the Direct TV works. He said if we still want it disconnected Monday, that he won't charge us for the the weekend.

Then I called Direct TV and asked about the weather problem. The lady said it's a non-issue, that she's had Direct TV for 15 years and loves it. She lives in Florida and it's been through lots of bad storms. Knowing Gerard really wants this, I went ahead and kept the appointment I made.

Today the installer was supposed to come between noon and 4:00. Want to venture a guess what time he got here? It was 5:45 and that was after Gerard even called twice to find out what was going on. Of course, it was a beautiful day out and we had to stay home to wait for the installer. The installer is drilling another hole in my house for more wires as I type this and shaking my floor. The big satelite dish now sits on top of my roof, but at least it's in the back of the house. I hope the product is better than their service!

We're really looking forward to football season this year. With being able to see all the games, I'll be a nervous wreck pulling for the teams I picked in my office pool. Time will tell if this was a good decision or not.