Choosing Between DirecTV And Dish Network

How do you decide which satellite provider is the best one out there? There are the obvious things that the average person compares when determining this. The first thing is start up cost and installation. More often than not, this factor is usually the same between the two companies that battle over the “who is the best?” title. DirecTV and Dish Network both usually offer a free installation and start up. Meaning that when you call to order service, chances are you won’t have to pay anything up front. That is a great deal, but doesn’t really help you decide who to go with if they are both free.

The next factor that is considered is the monthly cost of the service and the channels that are offered. In this area, again, the two companies seem very similar. They both offer more than 250 channels. When you start to dig deeper however, you will see where the differences start to appear. On the surface, it can be difficult and confusing to see facts.

For instance, at a glance the basic programming package from Dish Network seems cheaper than that of DirecTV. However, when you take a closer look, the package from DirecTV has a few more channels. It also has your local channels included in the package price, where as you have to pay extra to receive your local channels from Dish Network.

In the case of foreign language channels, both DirecTV and Dish Network have a very good selection since satellite TV is easily broadcast nationally. You can get channels in languages such as Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Greek, Italian, Korean, Vietnamese and even Polish. There are other languages as well, for both providers. Each company does offer different options in just about all of these languages, so determining the best would honestly be a personal preference. You can find out which channels are offered in which languages by visiting each of their websites

Bothe companies are paying close attention to high definition programming. Both carriers have an impressive lineup of HD channels. Dish Network has the capacity of 70 national HD channels while the Direct TV HD package has the bandwidth for 150. Both providers are beating out cable for the amount of channel options to get the most out of your HDTV.

With all of the similarities in the companies, you may still be on the fence. However, if you are an avid sports fan, and you are interested in the premium sports packages, then this might just be the deal breaker. Dish offers basic packages for football, baseball, basketball, soccer and hockey. DirecTV on the other hand far surpasses that. Sure, they offer those sports. But only on DirecTV can you get their NFL Supercast. If you have Supercast, then you have the ability to watch every NFL Sunday Ticket game live on your PC from anywhere. This means that you can still catch that game, no matter where you are as long as you have your PC. You also get scores, stats and highlights throughout the games.

If that alone isn’t enough for you to decide to go with DirecTV, they go beyond the basic sports packages. You can get rugby and cricket games, as well as Nascar HotPass. Nascar HotPass makes you feel like you are right there in the pit with the pit crew and right there with your favorite driver behind the wheel.