i live in a mild climate, obviously, but i've never experienced an outage with directv that lasted longer than a couple of minutes and that has only happened a couple times. i have had directv since they started.
cable, on the other hand, i have experienced many, many outages over the years. and lots of really crappy picture quality, too... and, when i called to complain, i was told they'd get to it at some point and that they were aware of the problem... then, i'd say i don't want to be charged for the 2 weeks until they fixed the issue and we'd get in a big fight and then eventually they'd give me a credit for the time i waited for them to fix the crappy old cable lines.
given the competition from sat companies, i suspect that the customer service from the cable guys has much improved, but they will never, ever get another penny from me. when they had a monopoly on the market, they treated their customers with utter disdain and contempt. they can all go eff themselves.
directv isn't perfect, but the customer service people actually try to help you when you need them. and, the picture quality and reliability are 1000% better. and, with the launch of the latest directv sat for hd in the fall, they now have about a jillion more hi-def channels than any cable operator.
i have the college fb package and the sports package and i haven't missed any televised Buff game on satellite in YEARS AND YEARS-- cable guys miss games. dish guys miss games. not directv, fully loaded with all the packages... last season, that fox sports central game was not supposed to be on directv-- cable guys had an alleged exclusive to that small station. i called and complained to directv and i sent an email. 2 days later, they added the game to their lineup on some other channel and it was televised on directv i am not sayiing it was just because of me or whatever but i am damn sure that no freaking cable monopoly would have ever gone to such a step to keep the customers happy.
directv is one of my favorite services. period.