New 622 Feature Coming

[SpenceJT]

The enabling of the LAN ports is great, but I'm not as excited about freeing up a phone line as I am about the ability to remotely program or adjust the recording schedule which I've heard will be an eventual progression of enabling the LAN. I would be curious to know if there will be an option to set communication preference, for example LAN over phone connection for calling back to Dish. If this is possible, then we will be able to keep Caller ID and save on the amount of outgoing calls placed (My current $14.99 per month Vonage plan gives me 300 minutes per month and I've a daughter who has yet to discover the "phone").

Back when building the house, I had it wired with two runs each of Cat 6 and RG6 to each wall plate. This makes for easy phone, LAN & Sat connection along with an easy way to back-feed my ViPs into the household antenna system.

The only problem is that with phone & LAN, I'm out of connections to the household network (I'm keeping my phone connection for the Caller ID feature).

What with the planned upgrade to Samsung's BD-UP5000 Duo HD (combo player) in the fall, and an eventual receiver upgrade, it looks as though I'll be using my old 10/100 switch for something after all (I had it on the pile to post on eBay)!

My only big question regarding Dish's enabling of the LAN port would be their level of expertise (or lack there of) in supporting network connections. I work in IT Support and can troubleshoot connection issues on my own, but as less technically inclined subscribers begin connecting their receivers to networks, Dish Network will become inundated with the eventual support calls associated.

I will be curious to see how the connection is made, and on which port the receivers communicate. Furthermore, I look forward to seeing if any security modifications will be required for those of us running firewalls. The receivers will be executing two-way communication, meaning that many hardware firewalls may block the connection by default. Opening up ports for the feature, also opens up additional holes in security.

I'm not concerned about data collection as it has been going on for many years. minor fear at this point is that someone will eventually find a way to hack DVRs, or infect it, which in turn could open up other devices on the home network. Slim chance, but as JSanders mentioned, the possibility is always there!

...of course I and my brethren have been monitoring JSanders for many years now.

Be seeing you,
Spence

 

[dstrouth]

Here is a question... isnt enabling this AGAINST dish's favor for those who are not being completely legit?

If one box is plugged into the phone line and another is plugged into the internet. How can they tell if they are at the exact same address?

To me this should come with a stipulation that either the customer uses only internet or only phone.

OR--- the fact that people can put a Access Point connected to an antenna outside their house, and their neighbors and use a client bridge to get internet in their house, and all the receivers would be "calling in" from the same IP. So receivers could be shared between neighbors.

 

[SpenceJT]

OR--- the fact that people can put a Access Point connected to an antenna outside their house, and their neighbors and use a client bridge to get internet in their house, and all the receivers would be "calling in" from the same IP. So receivers could be shared between neighbors.

Most people who can afford to purchase a ViP model, probably already have some type of broadband.

Those leasing units are pretty well in the "system".

I have no doubt that if there is a way to steal or pirate, someone will find a way. I don't see this as making it much easier. If anything the receivers will be matched up with the mac address of the gateway (similar to how smart card ID numbers are paired up with receiver embedded identification) making them in fact harder to move to another physical location.

In any event, should a LAN connected unit stop responding, I have no doubt that it will fail-over to a phone line for dial-out. Failing that, the auditors at Dish will see the unit flagged as having not reported in for a given period of time.

All in all, I think the move is a move sideways if anything as it may cost Dish more in support calls from users who are inexperienced with networking, but may save them a few dollars in monitoring and maintaining dial-in connections.

Cheers,
Spence

 

[harshness]

So the 50 dollar question is do they make a wireless adapter for a rj45 connector?

The answer to this probably comes in the form of a wireless gaming adapter.

 

[Peter Parker]

am I the only one that does not see anything about connecting to a home network under the install menu at scott's link?

 

[Hall]

If you have your 622 connected to high bandwidh internet, dish can do a lot more spying on what you are watching. They can compile this information now, and sell it to advertisers. We might become a ratings system, which has some benefits. Ratings drive advertising as well.

As noted, Dish can (do they ?) already do this today. It's in the user agreement we all signed. Of course, there's supposed to be privacy rules that keep this information anonymous, that is, not tied to our account.

I could care less if Dish "spies" on me. I have nothing to hide. I want them to see my FAVS list that has all the shopping channels left out, all the PPV channels, and so on. I want them to know that I've NEVER ordered a PPV or VOD movie. Will they penalize me for this ?? Or will they tailor their service better ??

 

[Hall]

Has anyone connected an ethernet cable to their 622 yet ?? I did yesterday and it needed a reboot for it to show up as "live" on my router. I would have thought it was always "on". I mean, the light doesn't mean they're talking, just that there's continuity.

 

[schneid]

Wireless Ethernet Adapter

The answer to this probably comes in the form of a wireless gaming adapter.

Homezone 622HZ boxes come with a 2Wire Wireless Gaming Adapter P/N 1000-100030-00 to connect to the ATT 2Wire DSL box. They work fine although I replaced mine with cable as soon as the installer left.

They appear to availble on eBay.

 

[SpenceJT]

Has anyone connected an ethernet cable to their 622 yet ?? I did yesterday and it needed a reboot for it to show up as "live" on my router. I would have thought it was always "on". I mean, the light doesn't mean they're talking, just that there's continuity.

Mine have been connected since day one as I didn't want to have to pull the TV out to access my jacks, or run cable behind the entertainment racks once everything was connected.

My 622's have been rebooted multiple times since then and neither device shows up as being connected to my router.

The switch ports that they are connected to, show link lights, but nothing actively Transmitting/Receiving. I expect this will change with the firmware update later this week.

Spence

 

[Hall]

I didn't get a light when I connected mine so I hooked up my wife's laptop to the line. Oddly it pulled an IP of 192.168.1.133 when it should have pulled .104 or .105. When I looked up the OUI, it reported a Chinese vendor (the wired ethernet on her laptop is Marvel Yukon). The wireless OUI shows up as Gateway. At this point, I don't know if the .133 machine is (was) the laptop or the 622.

I re-started the DHCP server and it hasn't re-acquired an IP yet. I suspect a reboot will be necessary.

 

[harshness]

My ViP622 is connected via 10/100 wired Ethernet, but it hasn't done a DHCP request yet.

 

[Smith P.]

If I understand correctly, AT&T's re-labeled 622/722 already does or will support this, so that's clearly a good sign. The other thing is, I'll bet Dish's programmers are doing the work on AT&T's box so they know how to do it.

There are need a few corrections:
- AT&T had 2WIRE 622HZ DVR, what appear as different model ( while have same FCC ID) by using different ICs [7412], HDD [500 GB], a case, GUI and software [M300+], remotes;
- it does support Web Remote.

Feel free to follow dedicated thread .

 

[schneid]

500gb or 250gb

An HZ manager I talked to Friday says the 622HZ is only 250gb despite what we've been reading here.

 

[conehead433]

Will this feature require that you have a static IP address? My ISP charges extra to have a static versus a dynamic address. So each time I boot up and connect I have a different IP address. Obviously E* could tell it was from the same provider and I suppose the unit would identify itself. Also would this require having to have your computer on at a certain time each day to communicate or would the VIP receiver initiate communication when it recognizes the connection.

 

[LER]

they would be STUPID to require a static address. 99% of residential customers are on a dynamic address. (Including yours truly).

 

[tnsprin]

This should work just fine for identifing if the boxes are in the same house, as every box should have the same IP if looking at it from the web.

Definitely not always true. When I use my router to do the logon, everyone gets the same, but I can also have each ask my DSL provider for a connection and then each gets one from my DSL's pool of numbers. Similarly for several other types of connections.

 

[charlesrshell]

am I the only one that does not see anything about connecting to a home network under the install menu at scott's link?

I cannot find it either. Need help Scott.

 

[Hall]

Also would this require having to have your computer on at a certain time each day to communicate or would the VIP receiver initiate communication when it recognizes the connection.

What does your computer have to do with any of this ?? I suspect you think the internet is "off" when you turn your PC off. It isn't, unless you also turn off your modem.

 

[Smith P.]

An HZ manager I talked to Friday says the 622HZ is only 250gb despite what we've been reading here.

You can listen to any "manager" at AT&T, but it's sort of not smart to ignore posted picture of 622HZ's HDD here.

 

[sfollenius]

The issue of static vs. dynamic was brought up months ago in a previous thread. Scott said their plans (at that time) were to allow dynamic ip addresses only and you will not be able to set it up as static through the menu options.