I ditched my horrendous cable company for satellite about a year ago. Since then, there has only been 1 weather-related outage (during a snow storm). With cable, it seemed like 2-3 times a month there was some picture quality issue.
Content-wise, other than not getting local CT network channels, there's not much difference. The HD picture is indistinguishable from cable.
My only knock is that the user interface is a little less friendly with satellite, and it seems like it takes a bit longer to change channels. I have DirectTV, by the way. Most surveys rate DirectTV way above Dish.
The switch saved me about $30 a month, and more aggravation than you can put a price on. I will never go back to cable for anything other than internet.
