Cable service has been with us for some time now and they were a welcome relief from the monotony of standard TV programming. When cable service made its appearance, standard TV programming had sunk so low, that soap operas were starting to play on prime time. The people that selected the programming that was being shown had begun to believe that the viewing public were as stupid and thick headed as they were.

Remember Dance Fever that was hosted by that fruit loop on crack Denny Ortarrio. If you weren't around back then, it was bad. There were others too, like the Partridge Family and a few others that are well worth forgetting. So cable service was a welcome relief, when it came along but we missed the warning signs that the relationship might become dysfunctional.

Taking advantage of public utility easement rights to tear up our yards and streets, to run a cable network that was destined to become obsolete, was one big sign. Do you remember the political scandals that some of the cable companies created, when they bribed corrupt elected officials in their battles over programming service turf? That was another big warning sign.

So after all these years with cable it seems that things have become dysfunctional. Who in their right mind would pay a cable service company to come to their house to install their cables, when a satellite service provider like DirecTV will do it free of charge. Thirty years ago when cable companies charged people for their initial installation, when they knew they were going to be buying their overpriced product for the next three decades, they were simply taking advantage of their customers and gouging them.

Would you shop at a market that charged you rent on their shopping cart when you pushed it around their store filling it with their merchandise? Of course not! Yet this is just what the cable companies have been doing for years and years since the very beginning. DirecTV has been recognized by J.D. Power and associates for the last five years in a row for their exemplary record in the area of customer satisfaction for one basic reason.

That reason is that the folks at DirecTV treat their customers like they would like to be treated themselves. Great customer service is something that can't be faked and either you have it or you don't. Service outages that have always plagued cable service customers happen at a far lower rate with satellite service. Cable service provides force their hapless customers to fork over more money for digital programming if they want to have the higher quality of picture and sound that it brings.

If you don't hand it over, then you get your programming from them in standard format which has been in use since the days of black and white TV. DirecTV broadcasts all their signals in digitized format and they wouldn't dream of charging their viewing family for it. Maybe it is time to take a good look at what your cable service provider has been doing to you and while you are at it you might take a look at what the folks at DirecTV can do for you.