I've had Dish for several years and any time they told me the problem required a home visit I was charged around $100. When I complained, I was told I could purchase a plan in which I paid a monthly fee and then, if they had to come out, it would cost me only $XX. I feel very strongly that because my reception is so much poorer than my neighbor's (his dish is about 300 feet away and we both built on previous farmland so there are no trees anywhere near our houses) there has to be a problem somewhere in their equipment. A while ago I raised enough hell that they did send someone without charging me and the technician told me I had the wrong dish! He installed a different one and my problems did diminish for a while. It was quite a session with a poor guy with a wicked accent that I could hardly understand that got me any help. I kept telling the man on the phone that their service had been substandard from day one and I refused to pay for anyone to come out, but I did expect to have the problem resolved. I didn't abuse the poor man but after every scripted apology he gave me I repeated that I wanted to talk to his supervisor. He put me on hold three or four times and each time he returned and read me the responses the company uses to stonewall customers. I persisted and he finally returned and said an exception would be made and indeed, a tech person would arrive at my house the next day. That is when the man changed the dish and the reception improved for a while. I became too angry to use this technique last night and I just decided to end the conversation. I can't remember the last time I have become so angry. Besides considering their service to be extremely poor, I refuse to pay them to come and correct a problem I did not create. There is no foliage blocking the signal, there is no ice buildup on the dish, there is no snow on the dish. The weather (I checked local radar) was light snow. Because the signal was gone for at least 7 hours I believe something really was wrong with their signal. Still, I recall that in the past and very occasionally, when my phone service went out, the telephone company credited my bill for time lost. My biggest beef with Dish is that they expect me to pay for repairs that I have done nothing to cause. I havenÂt called TDS regarding the slow DSL service because I want to get someone out here, and I will pay him, to go over my computer and make sure the PC isnÂt the reason for the loss in speed. Thanks for the responses and suggestions. Nancy

A follow up to share what I learned. The Smart HDTV is now working and delivering streaming movies to our bedroom via the WiFi. The only wires to the HDTV (Vizio) is the house A/C electricity. 1) Don't change the WiFi password in a router using the WiFi interface, use a Ethernet interface. This is based on experience with 5 year old Netgear (low end) Router still 54 mb capable 802.11n? I tried and the Router ended up locked up. The password change may gone astray in any case the Router could not access the internet for connection to either the Ethernet or the WiFi. Lights on the Router showed both the Internet and WiFi okay. I replaced with a newer Netgear which supports 150 mb and has more Internet based features. 2) My Smart HDTV (all?) does provide for inputting all keyboard characters via an on-screen keyboard(s). I got in trouble because the number only input on the hand controller made me decide to change my Router password to all numbers, which I did on the new Router. Still better, much faster putting in numbers from the channel keypad than to use the "Hunt and Peck" on screen keyboard. The (my) HDTV does not have a touch screen so one has to click the pointer around the keyboard to pick out inputs. This into my view only after I entered the all numeric password and hit the "OK" - the next screen was the subject keyboard - which I no longer needed, but did need later when logging onto Netflix. The operation involves being in a data field, input any leading numbers (best) from the hand held keys then hit the "OK". An on screen keyboard then appears. If nothing more is needed, i.e., all numbers, click down to the "Enter". Side benefit: then new Router specifies Windows 8 compatibility - the old one was XP, maybe Vista qualified and some older Routers have problems with newer OS. The HDTV showing a Netflix movie had no detectible breaks (buffering?). I thought maybe that is because of the new Router, as my W8 computer had (and still has) some breaks in Netflix streaming, not sure about other services. The W8 laptop still exhibits this problem. One last start up issue on the HDTV. After logging on to my WiFi I pushed the Netflix button on my controller and Netflix started to load but failed. I started over again, it failed again. I then tried the Amazon application and it too failed. I then when into "chat" with Netflix technical support (they came on quickly) after the exchange of information on the situation on my end the support person typed, try youtube, so I did, and it come up/worked. I typed back the smart HDTV must be learning or youtube is more fault tolerant, No response, but I then tried Netflix and it worked and continues to work.

Although, depending on any additional features of the Tivo you may use, the DSL would be much better. Once you connect your Tivo to your 'home network', you can do so much more with it. simple things like display pictures from your computer, through your Tivo onto your TV (so everyone doesn't have to stand around a possibly small PC monitor), to downloading movies from the web and watching them from the Tivo (again on your TV). Fun stuff indeed.

Get a gizmo like the Mediasonic ATSC Digital Converter Box or Analog to Digital TV Converter Box. Attach the antenna to the gizmo and the gizmo to the HDMI connector on the TV. Connect the Dish box to the coax connector on the TV.