With the massive wall of water coming at us courtesy of Hurricane Ian and knowing the 771 signal loss that would inevitably come with it, it’s about time I finally get off my duff and reject yet another price increase from DirecTV satellite service and also give the vastly faster fibre network connection a little more to do.
Do keep in mind that I actually liked DirecTV’s service and had it for many years and just learned to deal with the quirks when the weather outside would get frightful. Their channel guide and DVR were (and in my opinion, still are!) light years ahead of the comparable equipment from Time-Warner Cable/Spectrum in terms of functionality and ease of use.
But unfortunately the bills were increasing every year just as bad as cable and it was really getting to be too much to keep the DirecTV satellite box going when we could have comparable functionality by streaming content with a network connection more than capable of handling the load with ease.
I’d been toying with the various streaming options but the biggest constraint was that Bally’s South/Southeast (the old Fox regional sports networks) were only just rolling out their own streaming application and if we wanted to watch the majority of Carolina Hurricanes games, Bally’s is about the only game in town. Literally.
Now, I could choose to forgo that particular pleasure and stick with The Hockey Guy’s recap videos on YouTube but I can assure you that I’d have a revolution on my hands with my oldest son so the Hurricanes games stay. If he wants them bad enough, that is… 😉
We also enjoy sharing watching “On Patrol: Live” (and I get to enjoy guessing when exhaustion from his time turning wrenches in the Leith Toyota service bay finally claims him!) which is on this obscure channel called REELZ after A&E shot down it’s predecessor called “Live PD” in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd.
Those two requirements limit our choices tremendously and the most convenient one is DirecTV Stream which replaces the satellite receiver with a Roku app.
Signing up and getting the service working was pretty trivial.
Setting the satellite service for disconnection…not so much! 🙁
- 1451 – Representative Adrian answers the call but it is very hard to understand him with all of the background noise and a very thick accent that I strongly suspected was Filipino. Normally I do well with understanding accents (a career in IT exposed me to enough Hindi and Urdu speakers that understanding them isn’t usually a problem) but this one was proving tough.
- 1455 – Adrian wants me to give him the account security passcode. The only problem is that I can’t because I truly have no idea what it is because I never asked for one in the first place and every time I’ve ever had to deal with AT&T, I have to go through the same old argument that I didn’t ask for a passcode to protect the account, they added it without my consent, and in all these years have never chosen to disclose it to me.
- 1457 – After convincing Adrian that as I’m disconnecting the satellite service entirely and that he’s welcome to verify my identity by some other means than the passcode, he chooses not to do so and instead cold transfers me back into the queue.
- 1500 – New representative Israel comes on the line who is clearly more easily understood but also seems completely hung up on the passcode thing. Once again I explain that I can’t tell him a code I never asked for nor have ever known.
- 1503 – Transferred to Arjan who is supposedly in the “Loyalty Department” which is laughable considering DirecTV was known for only offering discounts to new subscribers and never to their existing ones which is why AT&T loved that aspect of their corporate culture when they acquired them. AT&T pretty much did the same thing but it appears in recent advertising that Lily might well have set them straight on that.
- 1506 – Cold transferred yet again to the queue.
- 1507 – Talya picks up the call and immediately tries to talk me into staying with the satellite service by offering me free “NFL Sunday Ticket”. Uh, no. I don’t really get the appeal of that “sport” other than occasionally watching UCF’s kids actually trying to make it to the pros and the Super Bowl where I’m much more interested in hanging out with my neighbours than the actual game (though I’ll confess I did like seeing Kansas City win a few years ago…even though I never saw the Chiefs live, I do like seeing small markets do well!). For me, football will always be played with a round ball primarily using the feet. Shocking, I know! 🙂
- 1509 – I think Talya quickly figured out the way the winds are blowing because she’s off the retention wagon much quicker than Spectrum was and processes the disconnect before the bill cycles again. As a happy bonus, I don’t have to return the box or the remote! Yay! Anyone need a spare HR-22 with two remotes and all the trimmings? 😉
- 1512 – Done!
Interestingly enough, the confirmation EMAIL Talya sent includes instructions on returning the box and remotes even though she explicitly said that was not required. That “don’t return the box and remotes” thing would eventually be confirmed a couple of weeks later by letter but I’ll admit the mixed messaging was confusing at best.
The DirecTV Stream app takes a bit of getting used to after driving the satellite box for many years but it’s close enough in functionality that it got pretty comfortable really quickly.
And look…no more 771’s! 😉