Dish Network bundles

May 5, 2012 1:39 PM

How do Dish Network TV/phone/broadband bundles work? Anyone have any experience?

We have the 3-way bundle from Charter now for about $100/month. AT&T is a no-go here, we are at the far end away from a switch, and their phone service was so crappy it could not even sustain a modem connection, not to even mention DSL. It looks like Dish network offers bundles by cooperative marketing with other vendors, of which AT&T is one. Care to offer your anecdotal evidence?

posted by ackptui to technology (3 answers total)

generally, Dish (or DirecTV) will partner with a telco, and you'll get your TV from the satellite company and broadband from the telco. These bundles are meant to entice you to sign up for satellite, which you might not want to do without also getting broadband, and the setup is made to be convenient for you -- i.e., you pay a single bill -- but there's no special service involved. Usually these bundles are only offered in areas where the telco doesn't have high speed broadband + TV (e.g., Uverse, FIOS), and the broadband offered is DSL. if you can't get DSL from AT&T on your own, you won't be able to get it via a bundle with Dish.

Sometimes the satellite bundles will include an option for satellite broadband, but that's usually not a very good option unless you really have no other way of getting broadband (high latency, etc.).
posted by devinemissk at 1:59 PM on May 5, 2012

I have phone company DSL and DISH. The phone company pitched their bundled service to me, but there was absolutely no cost benefit. The only possible benefit was the unified bill, but given how bad both the phone companies and the Satellite companies are about billing, I'm not really sure combining them is a good idea. It seems like trying to get a TV billing issue fixed by calling the phone company is just asking for a very bad experience.
posted by COD at 2:52 PM on May 5, 2012

I only have experience with the customer service/billing side of the experience, and have not had such a bundle at home myself. As others mentioned, if AT&T is the telco in your area that's most likely who they'd bundle you with. In some areas, you will get referred to DirecTV instead of Dish if you call AT&T for tv service but if you call Dish and ask for phone they'll still refer you to AT&T.

In terms of actual cost savings, you might save $5-10 off your monthly tv service but you might not get all the same promotional discounts you could get directly from the satellite provider. You'll also find it more difficult and/or costly to get equipment upgrades.

I know that Dish recently bought a telco in Colorado near their corporate hq and are attempting to offer more bundling options directly instead of partnering with local affiliates, but that's a long way from a nationwide rollout.
posted by kyleg at 3:44 PM on May 5, 2012