Well, I have had cable, Direct TV, and Dish. Over all I have found very little difference in both customer service, or picture quality with Direct and Dish. Cable has by far the most problems of the three. I live in the mountains with lots of fog, freezing rain, and snow. With Dish Network the only time I have issues with the signal is when the dish gets covered by more than 1" of snow or ice. The bundled programming packages are reasonable, and the on screen navagation is very simple. For me, if I needed to choose between Dish Network and Direct TV, my discision would be based on cost, because they are so similar in both performance and programming.