Phone Line - Yes, No, or Broadband?

[larrystotler]

This is not a continaution of any of the threads about hacking. However, I have seen many continue to say how the phone line should be required. There are a lot of us, like myself, that haven't had a home phone line in years. Also, there are others who use broadband like Vonage, which defeats the phone line purpose since you can take your # with you. Further, from the installer's viewpoint, sometimes it is either almost impossible to hook up the receiver to the home phone, OR very costly and very inconvient. Most houses have the phone line on the opposite side of the room or on the other side of doorways from the cable jack. Further, most customers are unwilling to pay for phone lines to be ran. Then, finally, you have the huge misconception that it will interfere with their phone line use.

E* has annouced some home networking initiatives which could limit the required phone hookup to only 1 receiver. Or, newer ideas for Quad tuner receivers. Wireless is not a good idea either because it has many of the same location-less characteristics of broadband.

Thoughts?

 

[TuxCoder]

Along these lines, I'm thinking more about dropping my land line at home. I remembered reading how someone noticed that Dish's website no longer mentions the $1 PPV fee as applying to online orders. I checked today, and indeed the $1 fee now only seems to apply to phone orders (you calling, not your receiver). With this in mind, I'm answering the poll "Yes, but planning to go cell phone only soon."

 

[dtanderson]

I have a phone line on one of my receivers (522) but not the other one (501). I am wanting to go VOIP but I don't think that the receivers will work with it, so I guess that I would have to pay the extra fee for the 522. I would still come out paying less. I don't order PPV since I use Netflix.

 

[ACD]

My Tivo requires a phone line, but also has an option of using the internet, either a wireless USB adapter or a wired USB adapter. I dont see why they couldnt put that on the recievers.

 

[DWS44]

Have no need nor desire to return to a landline. Been happily cell-phone only for over 3 years now. An ethernet connection on the receivers would be the ticket!

 

[larrystotler]

The biggest reason for the phone line is that it allows E* or D* to actually verify where the receiver is. The D*TiVo gets it's guide info from the sat, not the phone line, and the phone line is only neccessary for activating the DVR service and for D*/TiVo to keep track of what is being watched.

 

[Rick214]

I'd love to not have a land line bill but besides the STB I need a land line for my house alarm system. I only have the base phone plan which bottom line costs $19 and we use our cell phones for long distance calls

 

[The Big Wood]

I'd love to get rid of my phone line because our cell service works from our home, BUT Alltel is allowed a monopoly in my area. Alltel owns the phone AND cable in my area, so if I want broadband, my only option is to use DSL...which requires a phone line account. Cable broadband is not available because Alltel says "it competes with our DSL service." I pay $40 per month for the BASE phone line (no frills such as caller ID, forwarding, voicemail, nothing) and $35 for 3Mb DSL.

If there was a cheaper and better option for broadband (less than $75/month when you include phone service), I would immediately do drop hardwired phone service.

 

[riffjim4069]

Most of our calls are made to/from our cell phones (certainly all of our long distance). We still have a landline w/Caller ID and pay $37.40 each month in order to send/receive faxes and field unsolicited calls. We have been debated the continued need to keep our landline. Anyway, the 942 is plugged in 24/7 and is useful for viewing billing statement and ordering PPV. Our 811s are rarely plugged in since the phone jacks are 15-20ft. away from the receivers, I see no useful purpose to plug them in, and we and Dish doesn't charge $5 per month for keeping them unplugged.

An outbound ethernet port on the receivers would be very welcome.

 

[dfergie]

I have been Cell only since May of last year when I got wireless internet. I have use Cell only pretty much since 2001 when I broke my Ankle and after the 3rd telemarketer call turned off the Ringers on my landline phones... My Replays call home via Ethernet(they also have phone modems) It takes less than a minute to update Guide, software etc... versus the 10-15 on Dial-up and I had to pay a long distance fee for that... Ethernet works, E* should enter the 21st Century...or put locaters in the Receivers ala Cell Phones...

 

[jollygrunt]

I've got DSL so I need a phoneline. I've got the 522 hooked up via a splitter coming out from the dsl filter.

 

[DarrellP]

I'm stuck with a landline since my security system uses it and they have no way of monitoring (yet) over the internet and my only option besides DSL right now is satellite or high speed cable. Both of those are out of the question as they cost double what my landline bill is.

 

[Pepper]

Mediacom cable Internet is so unreliable around here I got DSL. Technically a "phone line" is not required (Harborcom, not BellSouth) but is just a few dollars more than the "loop" without dialtone enabled. Besides, my wife cannot be convinced to give up the landline even though we both have cellphones.

The local cable here is so bad, people here actually seem to think the "my TV sucks" advertising campaign is a good idea.

 

[Technojunky]

My old lifetime Tivo needs the phone line, my new series-II Tivo's use the internet on my home network.

When Dish installed my new Dish system, the tech said that he had to verify that I had a phone line connected to both of my recivers before he left, or they would charge me another $4.98. This was this past week.

I know a guy who had Dish way back in the 90's for about five years. He ran a dish to his father who lived net to him though an underground conduit. He had t orun the phone with the coax so he could have the phone hooked to it. They shared the sysytem and the bill. I can see why Dish wants to keep track of where their recivers are, they stand to loose a bunch of money if they can't keep a handle on it.

Joe