Total Choice Grandfathered Package

Thank you, greatly appreciated!!

I just found this post. 

I would like to compare my listing to what is available now. My package is from 2004 and has 135 channels for $120 + the regional sports fee (grr) for $135 total.

With all my other equipment I pay about $170/ month.

I have an old round 18" dish with a twin line multi switch, I can't "see" the HD satellite without major logging. I have a TIVO THR 22 for my main receiver and a current DTV receiver as well.

I don't have any high def equipment so I'm ok with what I have. I'm not ok with the regional sports fee, which the agent said my only option to remove it is to change packages. When looking at DTV's line up it seems that they all include the fee! Highway robbery.

Thanks for any suggestions you have.

@bearbig 

As a note, your SD dish will eventually fail to receive your local channels as directv is shutting down all SD local channels, although the national channels (100 onward) will continue to operate. This would require you to replace your equipment (depending on the receiver models) IF you want to continue receiving local channels. If not, you can hold off on a swap for the time being (a couple years). 

As far as the regional sports fee, the agent was correct that you must change your package to Entertainment or below in order to remove the fee. 

Just to confirm the status of your equipment, what are all of your receiver models? The THR22 is theoretically an HD capable DVR receiver, it is a hybrid receiver so it can be set for HD when you change the current dish to a SWM HD slimline dish (the technician does this free of charge for you since the SD to HD swap is mandatory in order to retain local channels). 

To

detuch254

 I don't have locals from DTV as I can get more channels via OTA antenna. I am near Canada, so can receive Montreal channels.

@bearbig 

So if you are fine with SD it will continue to operate for national channels for a few years. If you want to do the swap now, you can go for it but no rush if you dont care about the loss of locals.

The THR22 is a modified HR22 HD MPEG4 DVR to run Tivo software. The round dish will continue to receive the MPEG4 channels DTV sends from the 101 sat.