I just moved from Roanoke City to Salem. I have always had Cox before the move and loved it. They don't serve Salem, so I had to choose between dish, direct tv, or comcast cable. I got dish network.... and its not nearly as good as cox. They do gaurantee that weather will not effect reception, unless its a major storm.... but the overall picture quality isn't as good, and the local channels aren't available in HD yet. But they are saying that it will happen in February. Price-wise, all 3 of the choices were basicly the same for almost all channels with the HD DVR.