Deals & Pricing
Satellite TV systems, and in particular Dish Network, are often better value than Cable TV. Cable can have a lot of additional costs such as franchise fees and taxes on top of the normal monthly fees. Dish Network requires higher initial costs if you buy the equipment upfront, but if you commit to 12 months of services you can get up to four receivers and free professional installation in up to four rooms of your house.

Interactive Features
Dish Network offers great interactive features that are not available on Cable TV. You can get customer support or even pay your bills just from your remote control. You can check the Instant Weather, News on Demand, Games, Horoscope, Lottery, Sports and even Shopping all through your Dish Network system. Another great feature is PVR (Personal Video Recording). This allows you to pause and rewind live broadcasts. It also makes it easy to record your favorite programs.

Programming
Satellite TV providers are able to use digital compression techniques to carry up to ten times as many channels on the satellite transponders. So with Dish Network you can get more channels than with Cable TV for a similar or sometimes an even better overall price. Dish Network offers more sports, movies, entertainment, international programming than most Cable TV providers.

Reception
In some remote rural areas Cable TV is simply not available. On the other hand, Dish Network service is now available anywhere in United States including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, as long as there is a clear line of sight to the position of the satellite in the sky.

Transmission Quality
You can receive a better picture and sound from Dish Network since Dish Network's transmission quality is 100% digital. One disadvantage of Cable TV is that even though you can upgrade from Analog Cable to Digital Cable TV, analog channels will still remain analog.

In general, Dish Network and DirecTV offer very similar services. Monthly prices are almost identical and the channel lineup is also similar, but there are some differences between them.

Customer Support
Dish Network is well known for its effective customer support, being ranked #1 in Customer Satisfaction among Satellite/Cable Subscribers by J.D. Power and Associates. Since DirecTV outsource its customer support, Dish Network's representatives may be more informed and helpful.

Deals & Pricing
Dish Network's sign-on promotions are normally more aggressive than those of DirecTV. If you commit to 12 months of services with Dish Network you can get free installation and equipment in up to four rooms.

Programming
Although both networks have a similar lineup of channels, there are some small differences in programming between the two networks. Dish Network has a larger overall channel lineup with up to 500 channels on offer.