ANY home satellite dish is affected by the weather. The older 6-8 foot wide Ku-band home dishes rarely went out unless they were filled with snow. These new dishes that are provided by Dish Network & Direct-TV are not wide enough to get enough signal in a driving rainstorm. Virtually ALL TV transmissions these days come off the bird. If you see the head end of a cable company you will see huge, wide dishes that look as though they are tracking missiles. That's how they are receiving their programming. The same goes if you were to go to a local TV station where you would find that same huge dishe downloading ABC, NBC or CBS.
We have Direct and it rarely gets swamped out. Once in a great while but not very often.
Regarding Verizon FIOS. I feel your pain, but no matter how much you wish for FIOS to show up anywhere near The Villages, it's not going to happen. The cost for Verizon to roll out FIOS is so large that the company has said that they will only offer it in the largest US markets. It's in Tampa, but it's (sadly) never going to be in The Villages.
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