Broadband connection can take the place of the phone connection for all diagnostic, auditing, and ordering of PPV's or other services. This works out better for some people who don't have a land line near the box, but can get wireless internet to the box or those devices that use your home's wiring to connect devices to your network and broadband.
I would also think that the internet is a far cheaper method of connection than Dish's current system of boxes call expensive toll-free telephone numbers to "phone home". I'm not saying I know this for certain, but internet has gotta be way cheaper than what businesses pay for those toll-free lines because they are truly expensive to the company. That may be why there is a big push for broadband connection as well as just getting everybody broadband connected for some unforeseen uses yet to come. Also, Ethernet jacks on consumer electronics are now just about standard, and sometimes are present without a current function, but there for possible future use.
The 222K (and the predecessor 222) were designed to have DVR functionality using an external HDD like the 211K. Presumably, this would have also allowed for downloaded content via DishONLINE. However, this promise was made YEARS ago, and Dish is still pretty mum about if those boxes will EVER become DVR functional. Charlie did say on a past Chat that the software to make that happen was a coming, but Jim kept talking over Charlie saying, "No. no," but Charlie kept on talking and Jim kept on interrupting. That was like a year ago. Some of us believe that the reason the 222 and 222K are YEARS behind in providing DVR capability is Dish's decision to have USB 2.0 as the port for external drives while EVERY other DVR designed at the same time (2005-2006) opted for eSATA. USB 2.0, cheap and ubiquitous (Charlie LOVES cheap) just doesn't have the bandwidth to provide a 2 tuner DVR experience equal to the internal HDD models (connected via SATA, one presumes). We just want Dish to please tell us if this is a dead concept so we can all move on, or if there is something coming down the sat soon.
