ADVANCED RECEIVER SERVICE FEE $25 … that’s the way it reads on your bill. If you started with DIRECTV before 2013, you definitely have this fee listed. If you started with the service after that, you may or may not have it listed separately. However, rest assured that if you don’t see it, it’s just rolled into your bill.
“Advanced Receiver Service” is the fee you pay for an HD DVR. It lets you watch and record HD programming and share that programming with any whole-home capable receiver. It gives you access to Pandora, On Demand and apps. In other words, it’s the fee you pay for watching television your way.
Before 2011 this fee was broken out into three: the HD Access fee, the DVR fee and the Whole-Home viewing fee. These fees were almost always bundled together so DIRECTV simplified the billing structure by combining them. The combined fee is $1-2 less than the three fees put together, too.
Why do you even have this fee?
You need Advanced Receiver Service in order to use an HD Receiver or HD client. DIRECTV will not activate any HD Receiver or DVR without this fee if you’re currently paying it. If you started with DIRECTV in the last few years this fee may be rolled into the overall bill. You’re not paying less, it’s just being reported differently.
It’s true that if you only have one DVR and no receiver, you’re paying this fee for services you don’t use. It’s even more true if you only have a receiver. These are rare cases, however. Most people with one “advanced service” tend to have all of them.
Is there a way to get rid of this fee?
New customers may get part of this fee rebated as part of an “HD Free for 2 years” promotion (check with Solid Signal at 888-233-7563 for the latest promotions) and a call to a DIRECTV CSR will often help you sort out what other rebates you may be eligible for.
Sure, paying this extra fee kind of stinks. But keep in mind even if DIRECTV eliminated the ARS fee, they would probably just raise prices to compensate. Right now a customer with a single SD receiver isn’t paying any of these fees and if the ARS fee were eliminated, prices for SD customers would probably jump. Is that fair to them? It’s not really your choice whether or not to pay the ARS fee. In the past you could downgrade to purely standard-definition service. That hasn’t been possible for about six years.
Right now more than half of DIRECTV’s US residential households pay the ARS fee in one way or another. That also means that a lot of people don’t. Newer subscribers have it rolled into their bills, but there are still enough folks out there who have had the service for a long time that this article’s still important.
If you want to find out more about innovative ways to save on your DIRECTV bill, call the experts at Solid Signal. We’re here for you during East Coast business hours at 888-233-7563. If it’s after hours, just fill out the form below. We’ll get right back to you.
