A relative of ours had DirectTV. She called them to complain about service interruptions, but could not get a live person on the line. She called the Better Business Buraeau, and they told her that there were thousands of complaints about DirectTV.
Dish is not the only company with problems.
I have Direct TV and I have never had a problem with getting a live person on the line. One night at midnight something went wrong with our receiver and we called and got a live technician (as opposed to a dead one) who talked us through fixing our receiver and we were back in business in no time.