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Two Separate DIRECTV Accounts, One Address | Is there any way to merge the two without having to pay separate bills?
Here's a full breakdown of our current situation, enjoy the read and thank you to all of those who have helped or found this helpful! So not too long ago, we've moved into a new property that has two separate dwellings or a property with an 'in-law' house. Both of the dwellings including the surrounding land is privately owned by us and under one home/mailing address with half of family living in the main house and the other half now living in the in-law house. In a hurry to get our DIRECTV service up and running, we scheduled a professional installation appointment online with all of the necessary receivers needed for our TVs. However, the installer hesitated to activate some of the other receivers as it was not possible for the Genie 2 Server's wireless range to reach them in the other house. Feeling a bit irritated and impatient, the other half of my family occupying the in-law house created their own DIRECTV account and scheduled an additional installation appointment the next day which ended up installing another Genie 2 Server as well as another satellite dish onto the in-law house. I probably should've just called DIRECTV's support and asked them about what could've been done about installing service in this kind of scenario before getting into this kind of mess; and by "mess", I'm not only meaning the annoyance of having to pay two separate bills on two contracts, but a mess of technical issues that came with it. One issue is that we can't connect both Genie 2 Servers to our mesh internet as they interfere with each other and in some cases both of the servers need to be rebooted as some of the wireless receivers from the main house directly interfere with some of the other wireless receivers in the in-law house. So my question is that would it be possible to directly link or perhaps re-arrange our DIRECTV installation so that we don't have to experience these kinds of issues or at least pay for two separate bills? The only practical difference is that we now live under two roofs instead of one and everything else in a legal sense is the same as living under one roof as with most other DIRECTV subscribers.
Juniper
ACE - Expert
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23.4K Messages
5 years ago
Accounts under different owners cannot be merged as there is no change of responsibility process.
The Genie-2 (HS17) is unique in that it FORBIDS all other receivers from being on the account, only allowing clients. In most cases I would never recommend this model because of the built-in restrictions.
DirecTV is not designed for separate accounts connecting to one internet connection. As such there are known problems when this occurs.
If both buildings have the exact same residential address, so one property and not designated separate, then they could have been one account with different equipment. Only one main Genie can be on the account, but there could have been other HDDVR or HD non-DVR receivers, not just Clients. Those full receivers could be on the separate dish, just wouldn't share recordings view Whole Home DVR between the two buildings. Though same account, I cannot say if having 2 separate internet connections would work well or not for it. The other issue is that you would have gotten less free equipment as intro offers only cover up to 4 TVs (Genie and 3 Clients). Each additional box would have had one-time lease cost each of HD non-DVR ($99) or HDDVR ($199), plus custom/additional work cost of the 2nd building as not covered by standard install.
Unfortunately this is something that would have needed to have been done to your ideal setup from the beginning (more up front cost, but cheaper in the long run. You are also past the point of backing out of one account to expand upon the other, as DirecTV only has 24 hours before the service agreement is secure. So the "other half" will have to live with their decision as they chose not to wait to figure this out per their impatience.
Also keep in mind that there is a max of 8 devices per account (Genie-2 counts as one of the 8). That is per the new billing account system AT&T created to integrate with theirs. The old system was as many TVs as you could afford. Not entirely clear why that changed. Mentioning in case it matters for the total number of TVs between both households if you choose to update the setup after one account is out of agreement.
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shannon02
ACE - Expert
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21.3K Messages
5 years ago
This is why DTV only allows one Genie per account. AFAIK one of the accounts has to be cancel with the ETF being charged. Why the tech didn't offer to install more Wireless Video Bridges with an additional cost of $99 per unit with coax to reach the more distant receivers or just run coax and use wired clients is unknown.
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Juniper
ACE - Expert
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23.4K Messages
5 years ago
I think the key issue is two separate buildings. Not very ideal to run coax between. Also some techs lately seem to be under the impression that it must be separate accounts, which is not the case if it is one property/address.
One account to begin with, but still having a dish on the 2nd building (receivers only, no Clients of course on that one), would have been the best way to start. Bit more on starting cost because of non-standard install, plus how many boxes beyond intro offer, but over time would be cheaper as just additional TV fees instead of paying for another package and set of receiver services.
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