I feel your pain. My next door neighbor (in her 80s) calls me all the time to help her with her wireless Genie. That technology is half-baked at best...no wonder they lost so many customers last quarter.
I've been with Directv since Dec. 1996. No longer on contract, I call them every December--tell them either give me a good discount or I can live with a cheaper service like Youtube TV on Roku. Never fails--big discount every year. Sometimes I have to call 2-3 times to get the right person, but never fails.
They are BLEEDING subscribers and unlike AT&T thought would happen, those satellite customers that they lose ARE NOT signing up for DirectvNOW.
DirecTV has also made a change since AT&T took over, a lot of the PPV / On-Demand (maybe all) has to be downloaded via the internet. That' not an option if you don't have "high speed" (and dependable) internet service.
It's rather expensive to have DTV and HS Internet. I'm not thrilled with the ABB connection I have right now, plus the cost of the basic package is obscene based on what television you get.
Sorry, but the Roku / Internet TV has failed repeatedly becasuse the internet is not supporting the streaming video very well.
Lack of competition means us consumers are basically screwed. High price, low quality services.
As I memtioned, the cable video has skips / freezes. My guess is the apartment complex hasn't seen a wiring upgrade in decades and there are more customers than the pipe can handle.
More housing units have been added but the infastructure was not upgraded to handle the additional bandwidth.
You can call and try to complain - if you can navigate the automated menus.
