45 replies to this topic

[mr_smith02]

So, I live in upstate NY and I am considering switching over from Time Warner to DirectTV. Can anyone with experience making this switch share some feedback about things to be aware of? Taxes and hidden fees? Service being interrupted? Installation problems? Customer service? Phone restrictions?

[Rocco Graziosa]

I've had Directv for about 14 years now. I love it. I have had nothing but uber positive experiences with customer service, and they'll give you the moon if your ever pissed off or EVER threaten to cancel service. 5 to 10 times a year service is interrupted during a heavy snowstorm or thunderstorm, but it usually doesn't last long and almost never knocks out the standard def channels. With a connection to the internet their On Demand is fantastic, although you do have to download the content. All installations and conncetions were pretty good. A few times they sent out some real dummies to do the job. I always slipped the installer a twenty as he walked in the door and said "hook me up nice". They seemed to respond very well to that. The picture is crystal clear and they have every channel known to man as far as I can tell.

I wouldn't change back to cable at gunpoint.

Edited by Rocco Graziosa, 09 January 2012 - 08:45 AM.

[Titoschew]

I switched over to DTV this past summer. I've talked to customer service and tech support a few times and they have been really helpful and top notch. Like Rocco says, though, you need to make sure you keep on the installer when they come out. The first one who came out to my house first told me there was no way we could get signal off my roof. Said there was no sightline, which was baffling to me as the guy two houses up had it and my house is probably ten feet higher in the air then his. But, eventually I got a supervisor out there who said it would be no issue. On demand is great, the DVR is super easy. So far so good for me.

[PBDWake]

I'm up in the North Shore of MA, so my experience might be different than Rocco's. I switched over from Comcast during the free NFL Sunday Ticket promo a couple of months back

As far as DirectTV goes... they've been fine. Not spectacular, but fine. The service hasn't been an issue, we haven't gotten any of those supposed service issues that cable touts during poor weather. The OnDemand is a different experience than Comcast. The selection is different, and it usually needs to upload onto our DVR, which has positives and negatives. The negative is, of course, the time spent loading. The positive is that I can FF through stuff as quickly as I want, and am not limited to 2x like Comcast. The big negative for me is the multi-room DVR, which is what they were pushing. I can only activate the DVR from one room at a time, which is a bit of a pain.

However, the biggest issue I have has absolutely nothing to do with DirectTV themselves. I signed up for their phone/internet/TV bundle, and it packaged with Verizon and Verizon DSL. Biggest mistake of my life. Verizon has been nothing but the Anti-Christ for me with regards to their internet service. They put me in a 3 MBPS plan for DSL, but I have yet to even see me speed hit 1 MBPS through online speed tests. More frequently, I find myself in the .35-.50 MBPS range, with frequent drops in service. And the only thing worse than their internet service is their customer service. I won't go into the specifics there, as that's relatively unimportant.

Basically, what I'm saying is that DirectTV is fine, and well worth their money, but if they try and package you with other services, look carefully into those.

[HomeBrew1901]

I did it 3 months ago and I'm glad I did. One thing that was kind of a surprise is that I lost the signal with a few inches of snow on the dish, not sure if that is going to be an issue going forward.

[Gambler7]

Taxes and hidden fees? Service being interrupted? Installation problems? Customer service? Phone restrictions?

I have had DirectTV for about a year and a half now at home and can't say a negative thing about it. The installers and service guys are just local sub contractors so it all depends on the people in your area when it comes to service calls, etc. I've never really lost signal at all (through nor-easters, hurricanes, you name it), the costs are not bad at all for what you can get, picture has been great. I've never had to have them come out once.

Edited by Gambler7, 09 January 2012 - 09:31 AM.

[wibi]

I did it 3 months ago and I'm glad I did. One thing that was kind of a surprise is that I lost the signal with a few inches of snow on the dish, not sure if that is going to be an issue going forward.

You get snow and you are going to have satellite issues. Doesnt matter if its DirecTV, DISH or some other satellite based service as its a simple signal v. noise generation issue.

[geoflin]

I've had DirecTV for about 3 years now. Picture is great, every possible channel. I've had friends come to my house and tell me my picture is better than what they get with Comcast. The only problem, as stated above, is occasional loss of signal during heavy snow, rain, or lightning. Doesn't usually last long, but if watching a game and it happens at a critical moment it can be very annoying. The other issue, as also noted above, is the difference in On Demand. Downloading a movie can take as much as 24 hours, maybe even more, so you can't just decide you want to watch something now, you have to plan ahead. Having said all this, I wouldn't switch back to cable.

[Sausage in Section 17]

The other issue, as also noted above, is the difference in On Demand. Downloading a movie can take as much as 24 hours, maybe even more, so you can't just decide you want to watch something now, you have to plan ahead. Having said all this, I wouldn't switch back to cable.

I'm not sure what you're talking about here w/ On Demand. When I had DirecTV, they had a whole series of PPV movie channels that I could access by pushing 2 buttons on my remote. Like other providers, they typically have each new release being played on about 5 channels at the same time so that these "hot" movies are re-starting every 15-30 minutes and you never have to wait longer than that. There was no "downloading" of anything on their system.

They also have similar content at extra cost like MMA fights, big Euro soccer matches, etc., but I never bought any of that.

[OttoC]

We had DirecTV for a number of years when we lived in Northern Virginia but when we moved to New Hampshire we ended up with an apartment that faces north, so we were forced to get Comcast for television. That led to the only bad experience I have had with DirecTV. Just before telling the phone company to stop my 703- service, I called DirecTV to cancel. However, they did not stop my service and insisted that they had to send someone out to my new place to verify I could not receive their signal. The first appointment did not show and the second said, "What am I doing here? You can't get the signal." I still got a bill from DirectTV and I got multiple telephone calls from them (frequently more than one a day) trying to convince me to maintain their service. One of their people even went so far as to tell me that they had a "special" antenna that would take care of my view facing north. Then, they started telling me that because they upgraded my DVR I had a service commitment finally, I called someone at their corporate headquarters and laid all this out. I got the contract canceled without having to pay more or even return the DVR or dish but I still got mail from them.

All that said, I'd go back to DirecTV in an instant, just to get rid of Comcast. I fortunately live close enough to a central telephone office so I get 10M DSL. Overall, it would be cheaper to get my internet, phone, and tv as a package with Comcast but I refuse to give them any more money.

Signal strength is inversely proportional to the square of the distance the signal travels to the receiving antenna. Maximum signal strength is also a function of the wavelength of the transmitted signal, with the wavelength inversely proportional to the frequency. In other words, as you go higher in frequency, the wavelength decreases. Satellite signals frequently operate in Ku- and Ka-band (12-18 GHz and 27-40 GHz or ~ 2.5 cm to 0.75 cm wavelength). Rain and snow can scatter these short wavelength signals because the received signal is weak and they are close to the same size so they scatter it. Heavy rain and heavy snow are much more of a problem than lighter precipitation because there are more drops/flakes per cubic centimeter. Finally, as frequency goes up, transmitted power goes down as components and dish sizes are smaller (being a function of wave length).

Yes, you can lose signal during precipitation, but not all storms knock it out. If you dish is outdoors and gets covered with snow, that is a problem and you need to clean it off (without knocking the antenna off its correct line of sight).

[Titoschew]

To add to the points about losing the signal during snow. Most good installers will position the dish to be less risk adverse to snow, if possible. The way mine is set up, essentially sixteen or so inches of snow would need to build up to block it. Certainly a risk where I am (Southeast MA), but it's managable.

[IpswichSox]

I've had DirecTV since the late 1990s. I got it originally not only because of the MLB package but also because it had a regional sports package, which included NESN (allowing me to watch NESN pre- and post-game etc -- not sure if current cable or FiOS offerings include this). During my entire experience with DirecTV, it's been mostly bullet-proof (with only occasional and brief outages during severe thunderstorms/snowstorms).

The only issues I’ve ever had has been with customer service and scheduling on-site service. Whenever I had on-site service (to upgrade the dish, to move the dish when a tree grew too big, installation of new receivers etc), there’s frequently some screw up. Mostly it’s customer service didn’t communicate with the on-site tech staff on the right equipment to bring, or the on-site tech staff arrived and didn’t know what they were supposed to do. This isn’t an occasional issue; this happens nearly every time I call DirecTV. Most of the time, a tech is forced to come back a second day with the correct equipment. For my wife, who has to be at the house during a four-hour window, this is a pain in the ass. As for the tech staff themselves, they’ve been mostly competent (with the occasional communication challenges when English is clearly not a native language.)

After these customer service/tech staff on-site issues are cleaned up, I literally go years between problems, and I don’t think I’ve ever had to call because of an equipment failure.

Not sure if I’m paying more than what I would for cable or FiOS offerings (particularly if I bundled – right now, I have different companies for telephone, internet and TV). I feel like I’ve sunk enough costs into DirecTV during the last 10-12 years and the service has been mostly great, that I wouldn’t want the hassle of changing for something that was less than a really big savings. YMMV.

[SuperManny]

I switched over the summer for the free NFL Sunday Ticket deal they were running and I like it more than Comcast. I've only lost signal a few times during storms and it was only for a very short peiod of time. In terms of the fees I know that with my deal it was a 2 year contract with a reasonable rate the first year but it jumps up a good deal after year 1 so make sure you know what the year 2 rate is after all the promos are over.

Spreaking of their service, does anyone have any experience with ordering additional receivers and installation? I went to order an additional HD receiver this past weekend and they claimed that it would be an additional $100 on top of the $100 for the receiver for installation and an upgrade fee. I told them that I didn't need it installed because it just needs to be plugged into the wall but they wouldn't allow me to order it without professional installation. I cancelled the order over the phone but then went online and was able to order an additional receiver for just the $100 plus taxes which they are shipping to me. Was the customer service person just trying to scam me to pay extra fees or is installation normally required? I'm so confused now.

[geoflin]

I'm not sure what you're talking about here w/ On Demand. When I had DirecTV, they had a whole series of PPV movie channels that I could access by pushing 2 buttons on my remote. Like other providers, they typically have each new release being played on about 5 channels at the same time so that these "hot" movies are re-starting every 15-30 minutes and you never have to wait longer than that. There was no "downloading" of anything on their system.

That's not what I'm referring to. I get those channels and they function as you say. But if I want to watch an older movie or a TV series that isn't on PPV, (I recently wanted to watch all of Homeland because I hadn't previously watched any of it) I have to download it to my DVR and it takes a long time. For example, when I ordered Homeland, I downloaded the first 7 episodes. The download began on Christmas eve about 6 PM and didn't finish until the Dec 30 in the middle of the night. This is 7 hours worth of actual TV. It is quicker if you download in SD rather than HD. The speed of download varied during that time, presumably due to the bandwidth available to DirecTV at any particular moment.

[geoflin]

Spreaking of their service, does anyone have any experience with ordering additional receivers and installation? I went to order an additional HD receiver this past weekend and they claimed that it would be an additional $100 on top of the $100 for the receiver for installation and an upgrade fee. I told them that I didn't need it installed because it just needs to be plugged into the wall but they wouldn't allow me to order it without professional installation. I cancelled the order over the phone but then went online and was able to order an additional receiver for just the $100 plus taxes which they are shipping to me. Was the customer service person just trying to scam me to pay extra fees or is installation normally required? I'm so confused now.

I didn't order an extra receiver but I changed an SD receiver to an HD receiver when I got a second HD TV. They shipped me the HD receiver and a prepaid box with which to ship back the SD receiver. There was never any question raised about installation, and the the HD receiver came with instructions about how to hook it up (although I knew already).

[Kremlin Watcher]

You should also know that, from time to time, you lose channels because DTV is a very hard negotiator on channel fees. They have to renew their agreements with channels on a regular basis, and sometimes those negotiations don't go so well, and you lose a channel, but it depends on your region. I am part of the Boston broadcast area, and last year we lost Universal Sports, then got it back, and we just lost NBC over a major disagreement on fees. I imagine we'll get it back soon, but not having a major channel like NBC kind of sucks. Made me miss the Olympic marathon qualifier.

[Caspir]

Yep, I mean, I get that they're negotiating, but damn. I flipped through the channels and tried to throw on NBC really quick and it's gone. I'm a DVR TV guy, so I have no idea what (if any) shows I watch on NBC since everything just records, but it does suck, especially since I do like channel 7 news on the rare instances where I watch a live local news broadcast. I remember they had a showdown with Fox affiliates including FX during Sons of Anarchy this season. I was ready to switch to cable right away if it happened, but they worked it out. It's an annoyance that doesn't happen a ton, but when it does, it really blows.

Edited by Caspir, 14 January 2012 - 06:38 PM.

[Mr. Wednesday]

However, the biggest issue I have has absolutely nothing to do with DirectTV themselves. I signed up for their phone/internet/TV bundle, and it packaged with Verizon and Verizon DSL. Biggest mistake of my life. Verizon has been nothing but the Anti-Christ for me with regards to their internet service. They put me in a 3 MBPS plan for DSL, but I have yet to even see me speed hit 1 MBPS through online speed tests. More frequently, I find myself in the .35-.50 MBPS range, with frequent drops in service. And the only thing worse than their internet service is their customer service. I won't go into the specifics there, as that's relatively unimportant.

How's the phone wiring in your house? How old is it, and what kind of condition is it in? DSL service can be sensitive to old or poorly installed phone wiring. The good stuff is cat-5 that is arranged to avoid power cables. The not-so-good stuff is old straight, four-wire stuff that gets routed near electrical wires. I had to rewire the phone lines in my house to fix DSL signal issues due to the latter kind of wiring.

[Mr. Wednesday]

One thing that was kind of a surprise is that I lost the signal with a few inches of snow on the dish, not sure if that is going to be an issue going forward.

When I still lived in South Bend, a few times every winter I would have to go out and brush off my dish due to accumulation of snow on it when the wind direction was just so. It was always easy to tell when I needed to deal with it: there would be snow falling outside and all of a suddent my picture would start pixellating and washing out. I was fortunate enough to live in a single-story house with the dish in reach of a broom.

[PBDWake]

How's the phone wiring in your house? How old is it, and what kind of condition is it in? DSL service can be sensitive to old or poorly installed phone wiring. The good stuff is cat-5 that is arranged to avoid power cables. The not-so-good stuff is old straight, four-wire stuff that gets routed near electrical wires. I had to rewire the phone lines in my house to fix DSL signal issues due to the latter kind of wiring.

Might need to look into that. It's the old 4-wire stuff. I've had to rewire a couple of different things in the house since I moved in, so it wouldn't be a surprise. When I was installing recessed lighting, I wound up finding live wiring wrapped in tape sitting in the insulation.

[Mr. Wednesday]

I went for the complete overkill solution. I ordered a hard-wire DSL filter, bought a 66-block and punchdown tool, found an affordable box of something like 500' of interior cat-5, bought something like 50' of outdoor-rated cat-5 to run from the the network interface to the distribution block, and wired the distribution block in a closet. I only have one line, but the house is now wired throughout for two. I only send the DSL line to one jack, but I could send it to others simply by making the appropriate connection on the distribution block and hooking up one pair from the cat-5 to the desired new jack.

One common element in both of my houses when I had DSL trouble there, was a current or former alarm system. I'm not sure how much of a role it played, if any---in my former house, there was some kind of a problem with the way the connection was made in the telco's network interface box, and there wasn't a need for a general wiring fix-up.

I'll see if I can dig up the references I have on home phone wiring. I've got some useful pages bookmarked somewhere.

[kneemoe]

How's the phone wiring in your house? How old is it, and what kind of condition is it in? DSL service can be sensitive to old or poorly installed phone wiring. The good stuff is cat-5 that is arranged to avoid power cables. The not-so-good stuff is old straight, four-wire stuff that gets routed near electrical wires. I had to rewire the phone lines in my house to fix DSL signal issues due to the latter kind of wiring.

Are you thinking of CAT3 perhaps? CAT5 works for phones(speaker wire would work in a pinch, so that's not saying much), but its a little big and has too many pairs for most systems.

Edited by kneemoe, 18 January 2012 - 05:58 PM.

[Mr. Wednesday]

No, I most definitely used Cat-5*. For the wires running in the house, two pairs are allocated to line 1 and line 2, and a third pair is allocated to DSL. The fourth pair is idle. Coming into the house, I used the fourth pair for the pre-filtered combination DSL-voice on line 1, with the result that specific pairs always mean the same thing. (Blue: line 1 voice only; orange: line 2; green: line 1 DSL only; brown: line 1 pre-filter)


* I was surprised to learn this, but my research indicates that Cat-5 is the present standard for in-home phone wiring.


[edited to correct inversion of the colors assigned to line 1 DSL and line 1 prefilter]

Edited by Mr. Wednesday, 19 January 2012 - 03:41 PM.

[Mr. Wednesday]

This site was my primary reference for phone wiring:
http://www.homephonewiring.com/

[kneemoe]

Huh, go figure. I use CAT5 for phone lines here at work all the time just because its what I have handy, I just figured in a residential setting you'd go with CAT3 if you're going UTP. If you ever want to be scared s**tless I can share a picture of our phone distribution room, there are, no kidding, over 30 66 blocks. And I get the pleasure of maintaining the whole mess....

[timlinin8th]

I use CAT5 for phone lines here at work all the time just because its what I have handy

Thats pretty much why cat-5 has become the standard... Because of the demand of cat-5 the pricing difference is negligible, and rather than purchasing something that cant be used as a multipurpose communications wiring its better to just stock and use cat-5 in the first place. Every new development ive worked in has used cat-5, you hardly ever see cat-3 being used anymore.

[HomeBrew1901]

. I am part of the Boston broadcast area, and last year we lost Universal Sports, then got it back, and we just lost NBC over a major disagreement on fees. I imagine we'll get it back soon, but not having a major channel like NBC kind of sucks. Made me miss the Olympic marathon qualifier.

Two things about this, 1. This is getting really fucking annoying, figure it out and give me NBC back.

2. It has made me realize how little I actually watch NBC. There are 3 shows that I need to catch up on through OnDemand and only 2 (Grimm and Parenthood) that I actually care about but can wait a few days until they get uploaded.

I'd be pissed about the Superbowl too but I'm not going to be watching it at home anyway and I'd just buy an attenae to watch it if I thought it was going to be a big deal.

[Tim Naehrings Girl]

I am in Florida and we are without Fox right now, That is really the only negative I have about Directv. One really nice thing is that the prices don't change from month to month. My mother has Comcast and says that she never knows what it will say when she opens the bill. The price does go up in the 2nd year when the promotions are over, but they are always laid out without being sneaky about it. I wouldn't switch for anything.

[Van Everyman]

I wanted it back when we bought our house. But the guy said he couldn't just plug the dish into the cable feed outside that snakes thru the house -- that each TV needed a direct signal from the dish.

Is that even true?

(null)

[PBDWake]

I wanted it back when we bought our house. But the guy said he couldn't just plug the dish into the cable feed outside that snakes thru the house -- that each TV needed a direct signal from the dish.

Is that even true?

(null)

My DirectTV uses the exact same cables comcast used.

[Grin&MartyBarret]

I've had DirectTV 3 years now, and I have no real complaints. I've lost my signal a handful of times due to weather, but never for more than an hour or so.

The one thing I'd suggest looking out for, is that when you sign up they'll give you a bunch of premium channels for free for the first 6 months and when that time elapses, they'll just begin charging you for them. Likewise, if you order one of the packages (MLB, NBA, NFL etc.) they auto-renew it the next season. Again, not a problem if you're paying attention, but they make it an opt-out situation rather than an opt-in situation.

[HomeBrew1901]

Just got the channel back.

[Van Everyman]

My DirectTV uses the exact same cables comcast used.

Just to be clear, what he was saying is that you can't split off cables to TV -- that if you have, say, three TVs, you need three discrete cables coming directly from the satellite. The problem was, as the guy told me, we had one cable from the outside that snaked the house and split off at various points to the cable outlets.

My wife and I both agreed that we didn't want some cable guy drilling holes through the side of our house. But given everybody's good experiences here, I guess I'm wondering whether that's actually necessary.

[kneemoe]

Just to be clear, what he was saying is that you can't split off cables to TV -- that if you have, say, three TVs, you need three discrete cables coming directly from the satellite. The problem was, as the guy told me, we had one cable from the outside that snaked the house and split off at various points to the cable outlets.

My wife and I both agreed that we didn't want some cable guy drilling holes through the side of our house. But given everybody's good experiences here, I guess I'm wondering whether that's actually necessary.

Its years (and years) ago that I worked installing Dish Network dishes, but IIRC that's how their setup works.
Edit: upon further review... it appears you could use a multiswitch so as to avoid a complete 'homerun wiring set up', but splitters all over are a definite no-no.source better source
Briefly, he could have done the install, it just would have been more difficult to use existing wire and track it, finding the splitters to replace, etc, rather than running new wire. If its anything like when I did it, installers are paid per install (a one set-top box would be like $15, a two say $20) so they want to get them done as quickly as possible - he was trying to make his install easier.

Edited by kneemoe, 27 January 2012 - 01:44 PM.

[Titoschew]

Just to be clear, what he was saying is that you can't split off cables to TV -- that if you have, say, three TVs, you need three discrete cables coming directly from the satellite. The problem was, as the guy told me, we had one cable from the outside that snaked the house and split off at various points to the cable outlets.

My wife and I both agreed that we didn't want some cable guy drilling holes through the side of our house. But given everybody's good experiences here, I guess I'm wondering whether that's actually necessary.

Like kneemoe points out, a multiswitch settles this issue. One cable from the dish to the switch, which can then be split however you want. That is how mine is set up to three TV's all over my house. That's the biggest issue with DTV, their field people. If you get a good one, there is no issue. But, if you get one who is lazy, dense, etc, it's nothing but frustrating.

Edited by Titoschew, 27 January 2012 - 02:59 PM.

[Titoschew]

Time for a bump.....called up DTV recently because most of my promotional credits were set to expire after being with them a year. Called and basically said I have Comcast in the house for phone and internet and they're offer to switch me over to cable was competitive even with paying the contract cancel fees. Took some work by the associate, but I had $40 of the $50 in promotional credits extended another year and got Sunday Ticket slashed from around $225 to $99.

[The Four Peters]

You should have tossed in something about the Viacom dispute...they're basically throwing money at people because of that.

[canderson]

I called last Friday to bitch about that and got a $30 credit for six months, $10 another six, Showtime and Starz for six months and Sunday Ticket for free.

You just have to be persistent and get to retention, that's where the real credits are.

[Titoschew]

You should have tossed in something about the Viacom dispute...they're basically throwing money at people because of that.

I do need my Teen Mom fix pretty soon, hope they figure that shit out.

[Dehere]

You should have tossed in something about the Viacom dispute...they're basically throwing money at people because of that.

I'm about to call them on exactly this subject. Did you call and complain and if so what did you get?

Colbert and my kids Nick shows are about half the viewing in my house so this blackout is a bitch. But realistically I'm not going to give up Sunday Ticket.

[Tim Naehrings Girl]

I called them yesterday about it and got 6 months of Starz and Showtime with very little effort.

[Caspir]

I got the Starz thing, $10 off p/month (which everyone who mentions the Viacom thing gets), plus $5 off p/month on both HBO and Showtime. Not bad.

[HomeBrew1901]

I'm about to call them on exactly this subject. Did you call and complain and if so what did you get?

Colbert and my kids Nick shows are about half the viewing in my house so this blackout is a bitch. But realistically I'm not going to give up Sunday Ticket.

I'm on the phone with them now, was offered a "final offer" of 5 off for 3 months and asked to be sent to cancellation dept and asked how much it would cost to cancel and when my contract was up. Got a 5 minute schpiel about how it wasn't DirecTVs fault, he initially offered just 10 off per month for 3 months and brought it back to what my cancellation fee was. When I got the cancellation date and payment, I brought up "a friend" from this thread that got 6 months of Starz and Showtime and he immediately gave it to me starting immediately.

Not bad for about 10 minutes on the phone.

Edit: I didn't need to be a douchebag about it either. Was very calm and visibly annoyed because this is the second time I have lost channels in 6 months, the first time was the NBC in Boston and Fox in Florida dispute back in January. Once I was offered the 5 off for 3 months, I just asked to be transferred to cancellation.

Edited by HomeBrew1901, 19 July 2012 - 12:21 PM.

[Yaz4Ever]

Had a very calm easy conversation with Amir in retention. He offered me the following quickly and easily:

6 free months of Choice up from Entertainment
1/2 off my HBO pkg for 6 months
6 free months of Starz and Showtime
$8 off per month for DVR fees
Sunday Ticket Max for $147.96 + mobile version for my iPhone + NFL shortcuts

Might have been able to get more if I tried, but I'm happy with this. Amir implied that Viacom will likely be back on DirecTV within a couple of days. He said they are only working on one more channel.

[IpswichSox]

Wonder if the offers are also relative to your current fees? I suppose the more you're paying, the more they can shave it. Personally, I don't care but my wife is addicted to Teen Moms et al. We'll call.

[IpswichSox]

DirecTV, Viacom make up: 17 channels restored

After more than a week of failed negotiations that led to a service cut-off, television giants DirecTV and Viacom have reached a new agreement that will restore many of the media conglomerate's popular television channels to the satellite service provider's 20 million U.S. customers.

The agreement, described as "long-term," will see 17 television channels -- including Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, MTV, BET and Spike, among others -- restored. Viacom cut service for the channels on July 10.