I bought my hardware at a local retailer. I saved DISH the cost of installation by installing it myself. I subscribed to one main package and the "superstation" package, which stayed the same until the day I cancelled.
In all the years I subscribed, I was late paying once, as I recall, and NEVER got upgrade hardware of any kind.
Over the years, they've gone through several regulatory and contractual scrapes. "Must Carry", "syndicated exclusivity", network carriage fees, DirectTV merger. I've sided with DISH on every one of them. I've even written letters to my legislators about it.
You'd think that I would be the kind of customer they'd want to try to keep: low overhead, constant revenue stream. Apparently I'm not.
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