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DirecTv service address change


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I have been reading on the forums about DirecTv having a problem changing ones service address for local channels. I just got back to Phoenix AZ for the winter. Made one call and then 5 minuets later was up and runnng with local Phoenix channels. 

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We just changed Service Location. 25 minutes with two reps, and on hold a few times as they were trying to figure out how to do it. Finally told the second rep, who assured me he would help me change my Billing Address, and add the New Package I was interested in (English was not his primary language. And should have just moved on, after trying to clearly explain the difference between Service vs Billing addresses, as well as I did not want any changes made to our Packages. But, he was the rep the first one transferred me too - so thought he would figure it out eventually:)!). Called back, and by the luck of the draw this time I got a rep from Tulsa, OK support center. Within 5 minutes, the change was made. 

On this 5 month trip, I've only changed Service location three times, before the change I just made (4 total). Each time, it took two different Customer Supports, and about 15 minutes each. This call took three Customer Supports.

I understand with the push of ATT and Direct TV to Direct TV Now (No doubt in my mind, that 18" dishes on top of RV's, or homes, will become fewer and fewer, once 5G or Elon Musks Low Orbiting Satellites are up and running. Figure 2023-2025 - the game will change quite a bit.), so ATT has very little to gain by spending the probably 250-350 hours of programming and testing to update their software to allow DNS customers, to change their own Service Address. They don't seem to care about the I'd bet hundreds of hours a month in Customer Service reps time, trying to figure out either how to help us, or punt us off to someone else, to do DNS Service Address changes:)! We're just too small of a population, for them to invest the time and effort. Though I still send in suggestions to ATT and DirecTV that they should invest in that service, to retain customers.

With more and more streaming options coming available all of the time - ATT and DirecTV should be doing all that they can to retain customer's... All of course, just my opinion:)!

Best to all,

Smitty 

Be safe, have fun,

Smitty

04 CC Allure "RooII" - Our "E" ride for life!

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am sure that they must know that many customers are not happy with having to deal with staff from India or some other third world country. I do recall that Dell Computer changed to US based workers to handle business customer because of the comlpaints.

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On 10/1/2018 at 11:00 AM, Smitty77_7 said:

ATT has very little to gain by spending the probably 250-350 hours of programming and testing to update their software to allow DNS customers, to change their own Service Address.

Smitty:

I'm puzzled as to why DNS customers would wan't to change their service addresses?  I've always assumed that DNS makes local channels unnecessary.  We have DNS and have our local stations set to our winter time base in Corpus Christi which I don't bother to change as we travel. If you also have DNS I'm puzzled as to why you change your service address.  I can get local and regional weather a lot more accurately on the computer than on TV.

Joel (AKA docj)

Sandie & Joel

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37 minutes ago, docj said:

Smitty:

I'm puzzled as to why DNS customers would wan't to change their service addresses? 

I assume that like many phrases used when referring to satellite that are misused, he meant Locals.

From observation, Dish is moving towards RVers and DirecTV is moving away.

 

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As I understand it people who change service address are looking for locals, but the question is why when you can pull them in over the air??? With DNS I get the national feeds and that is all we need. We have a weather radio and our phones for local weather.

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I estimate about 20-30% of the places we go do not get good OTA reception with our Sensar w/Wingman and SensarPro setup due to the extreme tower distances. We like the locals for more than just news and weather, as there is often local programming beyond the network offerings that we enjoy watching.

Dutch
2001 GBM Landau 34' Class A
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2011 Toyota RAV4 4WD/Remco pump
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2 hours ago, SWharton said:

As I understand it people who change service address are looking for locals, but the question is why when you can pull them in over the air???

Because in some places you can't get OTA programming.  We're often in places where there is no OTA at all, or limited OTA (as in only Spanish-language programming, but no national networks). 

 

LindaH
2014 Winnebago Aspect 27K
2011 Kia Soul

 

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Sorry for the delay, got off onto other things:)!

And yes, probably used buzzwords incorrectly. Reasons for changing are:

> Local area news stations. As mentioned in this thread, sometimes OTA channels will not come in. 

> We're on a West Coast PST time feed. So evening news comes on pretty late, when we're say in Mountain Time. By changing our Service Address, the local affiliates of the big networks, sometimes, will have news and shows we like to record, available to us earlier based upon the local times. 

Those are the two key reasons we change. A distant third, is sometimes we want to catch the local evening news, and are out and about. I did not bother setting up a recording capability for our OTA feed, so can't record it to catch when we get back in. For example while traveling earlier this year, we seemed to be a moving ground zero for forrest fires. (Idaho area. Then over by West Glacier. Then seeming thru a dense wall of smoke filled air all across the state of Washington (Visibility so low at times, fog lights were on added safety.) By being able to record the local news, via Direct TV, we could fast forward to the coverage of area fires. (And yes, we check weather events too. And yes, we also access info via the Internet and our Data Plans too. 

Anyways, that is why when we'll be in a region for a period of time, we change the Service Address. Good example. We spent four weeks at Evergreen, and changed the Service Address to the park's address. We then moved to Oregon, and will be 5 weeks at Pacific Shores in Newport, then over to Eugene/Junction City area for annual maintenance and helping the local economy. So when we moved to Newport, we set up our Service Address to the Eugene area. From previous trips, we knew that if we used a Newport Service Address, we'd get Portland news stations. By using Eugene, we picked up Eugene's news stations. And the Eugene news stations seems to cover the area along the coast, as far as Lincoln City to the North - much better then Portland news stations do. And the spot beam covers us well here in Newport, from either location. 

That's how we roll:)!

Best to all,

Smitty

Be safe, have fun,

Smitty

04 CC Allure "RooII" - Our "E" ride for life!

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I tried to change my service address to Mesa, Az when we arrived last week. The gal from India said it would take an hour to take effect. An hour later I called back and asked for s tech. He stated that directv is no longer changing service address and this was due to fcc making it illegal. I told him he was lying and that was one of the only reasons I had directv. He said I needed to get a digital tv antennae. I to.d him I had a very good one but some times I am in an area that has no ota signal available. He said I need a better one. I hung up and called back. Asked for retention and told the lady I was going to cancel my service since I could no longer change my service address. She attempted to put in the address again, an address I had used in the past. The computer didn’t want to take it. I then gave her my sisters address and within 2 minutes I had my locals. I get tired of being lied to just because someone doesn’t want to figure out the problem. Didn’t have any problems at all u til att took over.

Ron C.

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2000 Kenworth T2000 Optimus Prime

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. We have directv. We have not requested a service address change for some time  but we  did for a few years and never had a problem.The locals would come in while we were still on the phone with directv. We realized that it was easier to  get the local channels via the bat wing with no problem at all.I think we can remember two or three times since 2006 when we were over nighting and could not get a good local channel. Perhaps since we do not boon dock in out of the way places is the reason we have little trouble will OTA locals. When on the road we use the OTA antenna instead of setting up our G2+ dome. We can not remember the last time we could not get OTA locals.

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7 hours ago, Ronbo said:

My sister is in queen creek. I believe you also stay at Monte Vista. Their address is the one we had trouble with, although worked fine in the past.

Actually we are at Val Vista Villages..  

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My experience with DTV for 20 yrs is that the answer to any question always depended on which CSR answered the phone. Its also been DTV policy for many years to try to discourage mobile users from frequent service address changes. I got a letter 10 yrs ago stating they would no longer allow service address changes for mobile users,  long before any AT&T involvement. If you didn't run into this issue in the past, you were just lucky in who answered your calls. But hang-up and call back and you'll get a different answer.

Jim

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Well I started this thread a week ago and today I tried to pay my bill and got a message that my account is being upgraded to AT&T and I could not pay my bill at this time. I guess they think it is an upgrade!  I hope when I head back north in the spring I won’t have any problems changing my service address. The message said late charges will not apply. We will see how AT&T does. My two year contract expires next March and I may switch back to Dish but I will have to spend $500 to convert my Travler dish on the roof. 

2015 Itasca Ellipse 42QD

2017 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon Hard Rock Edition

2021 Harley Street Glide Special 

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Despite all the bad press that DirecTV gets (usually with much justification) I have to say that I was pleased to notice that I had unexpectedly started to receive a $15 bill credit and free HBO all because we also have an AT&T account (that isn't even an unlimited one).  That reduced our monthly costs to the point where the difference between streaming video content via something like DirecTV Now and watching it via satellite isn't all that much.

Sandie & Joel

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On ‎10‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 8:05 AM, docj said:

Smitty:

I'm puzzled as to why DNS customers would wan't to change their service addresses?  I've always assumed that DNS makes local channels unnecessary.  We have DNS and have our local stations set to our winter time base in Corpus Christi which I don't bother to change as we travel. If you also have DNS I'm puzzled as to why you change your service address.  I can get local and regional weather a lot more accurately on the computer than on TV.

Joel (AKA docj)

Docj, I have a question for you.  We don't really need to get our local channels while we travel but would like to have good CBS, NBC, ABC, and the FOX available channels all through DirectTV.  For us it would be better to have those networks on a eastern time zone since we winter in SW Florida.  

So can we just simply go online and change our package from our current residential package to a DNS eastern satellite feed package?  If so is it usually cheaper or more expensive?

Joe & Cindy

Newmar 4369 Ventana

Pulling 24' enclosed (Mini Cooper, Harley, 2 Kayaks)

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1 hour ago, SWharton said:

The DNS feed is $15/month, I believe that is an additional charge. Your feed will depend on your billing address. We do know the Escapees in Livingston is an eastern feed. Where is your billing address?

AFAIK Sharon is correct.  Your billing address determines east vs west; if it is in the eastern or central time zones you get the eastern feed.

As for cost, you should be aware of the fact that the $15 is in addition to the programming package you are already paying for.  I've never heard of anyone getting DNS without a programming package, also.

As far as how to get DNS you need to complete a DNS form which can be downloaded from the DirecTV website and fax or mail it back along with a copy of the registration card for your RV.  There's no way to do it online.

Sandie & Joel

2000 40' Beaver Patriot Thunder Princeton--425 HP/1550 ft-lbs CAT C-12
2014 Honda CR-V AWD EX-L with ReadyBrute tow bar/brake system
WiFiRanger Ambassador
Follow our adventures on Facebook at Weiss Travels

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