New Dish Tactic (long)

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JohnL

Pub Member / Supporter
Original poster
Sep 23, 2003
1,415
94
Spencerport, NY
Many know that post here quite frequently, so please bear with me.

I just got the mail today. In it is a Dish letter instructing me to
connect all of my 6 receivers to a phone line. See below;

Dear John & Meghan Lodge,

Thank you very much allowing DISH Network to continue bringing you
the highest value in entertainment for the lowest possible price. We
know you have a choice in television service providers and we strive to
be the best.

As part of our commitment to provide you the best service, we
periodically evaluate ways to keep costs down by making sure all of our
customer's receivers are operating properly and their accounts are
accurate. We perform this evaluation through the phone line connected to
the back of each receiver. Per our Residential Customer Agreement and to
ensure accuracy, we require all receivers in your house be connected to
a phone line. For your reference, we have enclosed a copy of the
Residential Customer Agreement (see sections IF & 4E). The phone line
connection also enables us to confirm that individual accounts are not
shared by multiple households. This is a direct violation of our
Residential Customer Agreement and would be unfair to the companies and
people who create and produce the programming channels you watch. While
we are pleased to provide you with multiple receivers in your own home
for a single account, separate households require separate accounts to
purchase programming. Occasionally customers are unaware of the
requirement for separate accounts for separate households. Our records
indicate you have 6 receivers on your DISH Network account. If one or
more of the receivers on your account are NOT located in your home, your
account is not set up correctly and it is important that you please call
us today between 5am and 11pm MST at 1-888-371-9077 so we can resolve
this situation.

Please make certain all of the satellite receivers in your house are
consistently connected to the phone line associated with your DISH
Network account. If there is not a phone line close to your receiver
locations, you can purchase a wireless phone jack from local consumer
electronics stores, or you can order one directly from us at
1-888-371-9077 and we will ship it to you today. We understand the
inconvenience this requirement may cause, and appreciate your
compliance. Thank you for being a DISH Network customer.

Sincerely,

Robert A. Kondilas
Vice President Account and Systems Integrity
DISH Network

(Getting on the Soap box)
Seems alittle heavy handed to me. I've been a Dish Customer since
1997. My programing charges are over one Hundred dollars per week. I
just came off a Club Dish promotion with a couple more to be added for
this year. I have a RV exemption as well, I wonder how I'm suppose to
connect that receiver to a my home phone line.

I called Dish to ask about this letter and even offer to go over
each and every receiver location ID. The CSR said that wasn't neccesary,
but somebody will call in the future, and that I really need to connect
all of my receivers except "maybe" the RV receiver. I explain that my
home is 140 years old and then some and phone connections for a couple
of receivers is going to be difficult. She says get a wireless phone
jack, I tell that it won't work either as my home was added to over the
years from a modest Brick Farm House to a much larger home and now some
of the interior walls used to be the original exterior brick structure
that is 2 feet thick. Those wireless phone jacks are unless as I have
even tried some cordless phones and with the old lath walls in
combination with the brick they just don't work or work well.

I'm pretty pissed at the moment, since I have been called a couple
times previous to verify location Id's with no problems, since all my
receivers are at my home as they are suppose to be (Minus the RV
receiver). I asked if there was a reason I was targeted, she tells me
and ALL Customers with 3 or more receivers have ALREADY been notified,
and we are just getting around to the customers with more than 4
receivers. Which I know isn't true as I have several friends that signed
with Dish, have never been targeted with 3 or more receivers. I then
asked why most installers never run phone wire to recievers as part of
an install, and why I should be asked to do it if this is a condition of
service. She says. "ahhhhhh ahhhh [silence], we really do need you to
connect the phone line to your recievers."

I'd like to thank Dish for treating me in this special way. BTW, I
subscribe to TOP 150, w/Distant locals via RV exemption (NYC, and LA),
Superstations, HBO and Starz as well.

I guess I'll have spend some more money to run all the wire to the
other 4 receivers at my expense not to mention my time. I really don't
like the insinuation I'm account stacking, and it really doesn't sound
to me that they appreciate my business.

(Getting off the Soap Box)

Thanks for listening
John
 
Thanks John, you are 100% correct in everything you say.

I have only 2 of my 5 receivers plugged into phone lines (That being my 6000 and 721)

The other 3 are no where near phone lines and actually one is in my truck (which they won't give me an RV Waiver for since they don't consider it an RV)

If Dish wants to call me at anytime for my location id's they are welcomed to, they will get them all except for the one in the truck which needs to be hooked up. :)

They should follow DirecTV's lead, when I had DirectTV they would not let you have NFL Sunday Ticket on your secondary receivers if they were not plugged into phone lines, I said that OK fair enough and was never bothered about it again.

Lets hope Dish sees the light, this is going to cost them more then it gains for them.
 
I just got the same letter you did and I promptly dropped off of my account two of the 508 receivers. I had to also open a second account with mininmal programming for my second home. They are also sending me a wireless jack for my 508 receiver I did keep in my son's room: Free of Charge.
I will have to drop off some extra programming as well to afford the second subscription. I travel back and forth several times a month and my Aunt lives there so it makes sense to keep this subscription as well.
A lot of trouble to keep in compliance with Dish's rules and their new enforcement of those rules. But I am legit now and intend to keep it that way. I also plan to get a 522 in place of the 508 receiver and then I will have the ability to record and watch something different on two different tvs. I might even replace my 721 as well and then I will be able to do 4 tvs for the same additional receiver fee.
 
Do all receivers have to be connected to the same phone number/line? I have 2 different phone numbers in my house. For example: Can 2 receivers be connected to 1 number and 2 more receivers connected to the other number and still be on the same account?
 
I'm sure it's not all customers with 3 or more receivers. But it is customers with a lot of receivers and high programming packages. I can clearly see why they're doing this and if any of us were in the same business then I'm sure we'd all do the same. It's simply the smart thing to do, you don't want people sharing accounts, which I assure you many ppl do.

Although Scott is right, maybe if they did something along what Directv does/did that'd lessen the blow. Say you subscribe to AEP and extras, then they can say the receivers that aren't plugged up to phone lines won't be able to receivers anything above Top 150. That way if you have a couple receivers that you really can't run lines to, then you'd just have to deal without a couple channels and be forced to watch those on another tv.


All in all, I feel your pain. You feel like you're being called a thieft but please understand that we'd all do the same if we ran Dish. They're losing money because of account sharing and this is the only way they can stop it.


As a note to Dish, all new receivers should come with an RJ45 connection. The trend is that many ppl are dropping their land phone lines and many ppl will obviously be upset over this, but broadband internet is growing and this replace the RJ11 jack on the receivers in the future. In the mean time, please allow both connections.
 
The problem with an ethernet connection is that is says nothing about your location from the IP Address. So having a RJ-45 connection would not verify that the receivers are anywhere near each other.
 
reedl said:
The problem with an ethernet connection is that is says nothing about your location from the IP Address. So having a RJ-45 connection would not verify that the receivers are anywhere near each other.


They can see which general region you're in. By knowing which phone number Dish doesn't exactly know you're using it at your address either. Dish doesn't actually care where in the US your receivers are, as long as they're all in the same house, so an IP address should suffice.
 
This is not a new tactic. I've been a Dish subscriber for years; it has always been policy, as long as I've been a subscriber, that for multiple-receiver accounts, all receivers on the same account must be hooked up to a phone line, and it must e the same phone line.

I can't blame them. Without this requirement, the receivers in question could be spread out over the entire area of the spot beam. There's no other way Dish can verify that they are, in fact, located in the same household. It would harldy be fair to the rest of us if some subscribers were only paying one-sixth of what most of us pay.
 
What about those that do not have phone service, what are they supposed to do? A lot of people have internet access through cable/satellite/wirelessly/etc and use a cell phone or services such as Vonage through broadband internet access for phone service and do not have a landline phone line.
 
Not to be a defender of E* or D*, as long as I can remember the phone line requirement for multiple receivers has been part of their service agreement. I see this as just a way for these companies to verify that the receivers are actually installed at the same location to cut out the 'cheaters' that have them set up in multiple locations. I've read on other threads that E* will work with folks by providing wireless or powline extenders for free so they can meet the requirement. For folks with Vonage, or another VOIP service, I don't see why you couldn't also connect the boxes to that services hardware box. For the folks with only cellular service, that can be a problem I guess.
 
I know they probably can't do this to the already made recievers (or maybe they can with a SW update)... But I think it would be a good idea to build into their switching protocol a way to send heartbeats through the switch. Each receiver must hear X amount of heartbeats from the other recievers before operating. If you have an RV waiver or whatever, then its set to X-1. They must have a few extra bits to use in their protocol scheme. The # of recievers is loaded onto the smart card or EEPROM of the ird, they just have to push the info to the ird.

This could also be done through an ethernet network, if the sub connected each ird to the network, they could all talk to each other. This would also be useful for checking smartcard status between the boxes, making sure noones been tampering :)

What if you dont have power to the ird all the time? Good point, but it also cant dial out if this is the case :).

A problem i see is that you might have some IRDs connected to totally separate dishs/switches, but i bet there are a lot LESS of these cases than people only having one ird hooked to the phone.. And you wonder why people pirate d*/e* ;-)

Sorry for the ramble, just brainstorming...
 
Well they could also start installing WiFi and do discovery this way. Have each receiver configured to know who is friends are (Other receivers on account). If you cannot find a friend then you must not be local. Hell there is also technologies that offer IP through your AC. This would also be a possible solution. There are issues here but having a scheme that requires hook up is just not practical anymore.
 
Having the Everything package is a reason to have a customer on phone lines, not a defense for how much money you are spending on E*. A $100 monthly bill is only $20, if split five ways between your neighbors.
 
Ace said:
Do all receivers have to be connected to the same phone number/line? I have 2 different phone numbers in my house. For example: Can 2 receivers be connected to 1 number and 2 more receivers connected to the other number and still be on the same account?

The Customer Service Agreement says they all have to be on the same phone line.

--- WCS
 
BarryO said:
This is not a new tactic. I've been a Dish subscriber for years; it has always been policy, as long as I've been a subscriber, that for multiple-receiver accounts, all receivers on the same account must be hooked up to a phone line, and it must e the same phone line. I can't blame them. Without this requirement, the receivers in question could be spread out over the entire area of the spot beam. There's no other way Dish can verify that they are, in fact, located in the same household. It would harldy be fair to the rest of us if some subscribers were only paying one-sixth of what most of us pay.

When I first signed up for DISH in 1999 I had two homes and three receivers. I asked them which home I should sign up under and if there was any problem with having receivers in both. They told me to use the address of the home I used the most and there was no problem having my receivers split between the two. Those receivers were always plugged into phone lines, whichever house they were in. I'm now down to one home but up to five receivers. I have not received DISH's letter yet but four of my five receivers are on phone lines, two of them on one wireless jack. I've ordered an additional wireless receiver to bring my fifth receiver into compliance but I can see I'm going to need yet another wireless receiver when my 921 arrives. At least I should only need the one transmitter.

--- WCS
 
Maybe dish is finally going to hit the pirates some by making the recievers call in or not be able to decode the programming stream.

They could do it by making each reciever call in once a month to be reauthorized, or have them go out. You would get a screen up saying you have to plug into a phone line to be reauthorized.

This would not be so bad if you were able to just plug them in once a month to be reauthorized.
 
Maybe they will limit those without land lines to only one receiver on their account. This way they can't stack their accounts. They wouldn't need a phone line for only one receiver.
 
ROLLTIDE said:
Yes but some people don't have landlines . Would there be some kind of cell phone hook up ?

I have a cell phone dock that has a phone jack on it and allows you to plug a landline phone into the cell phone. I hooked it up to the second phone line connection on my wireless base station for the house so I can make "free minutes" long distance calls on my cell phone using any house phone. The problem with using this arrangement for a DISH receiver is that the cell phone requires you to dial a "#" after the number to activate the "send" button on the cell line. Also, data may not work on a digital cell line without a special adapter and software.

--- WCS
 

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