DirecTV Satellite Television: A Consumer's Consideration

When my husband and I moved into our house, our first consideration was to get cable, with the included high speed internet and digital phone service. However, when the cable company representative came out to set things up for us, he discovered that we did not have a cable line running from the pole to our house, and it would be a week before anyone could come out and run that line. This is when we thought perhaps we should give satellite a try. We chose DirecTV because of it cooperation with Verizon, so that again we could get cable, internet, and phone all at once. One thing we discovered, that is only a minor nuisance, is that DirecTV and Verizon do not communicate well when it comes to installation.

The technician who came to our house did not know what I had asked for when I called Verizon to set up the package. This is not necessarily a problem, but I do share it as a warning to write down specifically what you talked to the Verizon representative about if you choose the whole package deal.

Installation did not exactly do smoothly. The first tech to come to our house said that we had a very little chance of getting a decent picture. This is, of course, the drawback to satellite: you need to have a clear view of the southern sky. In Virginian suburbia, this is difficult. However, he said he would request a "second opinion", so after a few more days-I had the internet finally at this point, so I was less concerned with getting TV-another tech came to our house. He looked around, pointed his Star Trek-like contraption at the sky, and determined that he could get a decent picture. He did warn us that a few years of tree growth may impair our picture, but he was confident we could get a quality picture for now. We found this disparity between the two technicians questionable, but chalked it up to human error.

So, on came the TV. The first thing that caught my attention was the guide feature. The guide on DirecTV is great. It's a one-button, on-the-screen viewing guide, and as my mom says, it is the new way to surf. It keeps a small corner box of the channel currently on, so you can search for your next show while still watching the current one. The amount of channels is mind-numbing, especially for someone who grew up with only network TV. It even accesses XM Radio stations, so if you love music you can have 24 hours of commercial-free music. There is no picture on these channels, but there are also plenty of music video stations.

If sports is your thing, DirecTV offers channels and channels of sports, and you can purchase sport-specific packages, such as the MLB Extra Innings, NASCARHotPass, or the NFL Network. While a little pricey, if you love sports, you will be in heaven with these deals.

They also offer a variety of channel packages. The smallest is the Family Choice package which is limited to channels deemed "family friendly". The basic package is Total Choice which includes 155 channels and 50 XM stations. For a few more dollars, the Total Choice Plus package adds 30 more channels and 17 more XM stations, and then Total Choice Premier offers 250 channels, premium movie channels, sports packages, and all those XM stations. If that is just not enough for you, Titanium will give you everything DirecTV has to offer. There are also HD offerings, for those of you that high-tech.

The big question with satellite television is picture quality. I have very few complaints. We did occasionally lose our picture during storms in the summer, but as I mentioned we do have trees that are close to coming between us and the satellite. Since the leaves started falling, we actually have not had any troubles at all. The quality itself seems decent, as far as we can tell on our cheap 20" TV. All in all, we feel that DirecTV has been a good choice. Customer service is very helpful, and fairly prompt, and paying for it with our Verizon bills makes life just that much easier.