Upgrade To HDTV , Land-Line ?

[His Self]

We've been on DirecTV with Tivo for over 18 months, upgraded and got local channels dish added 8 months ago. Using only a single receiver, splitting it off to a second TV upstairs. Since it's just my wife and I, we don't need seperate receiver.
We gave up our land line phone in May, went to cell phones for telephone calls and use StarBand for our internet on a seperate StarBand Dish. (DirecWay Satellite Internet was not in our line of sight according to a site survey installer)
This past weekend we replaced the downstairs TV with an HD Widescreen LCD TV and now want to upgrade to a DirecTV HD Receiver/Tivo to service our two TVs . We've gone over 200 days without our DirecTV receiver connected to a land line... with no problems. But now that we want to switch to a HD Receiver/Tivo , I am wondering if DirecTV will even hook it up since we abandoned the land line completely ?

I know DirecTV is trying to avoid customers stacking and I will gladly drop the upstairs TV completely in order to have the HD available downstairs as long as I don't have to install a land line phone again.

Reading many of the posts on the anal retentiveness of DirecTV over the phone issue, am I facing an insurmountable obstacle in seeking to upgrade to the HD Receiver/Tivo ? Or will the need for only a single receiver move DirecTV to a common sense position and thus fulfill my needs ?

If DirecTV is unwilling to bypass the landline phone issue, would Dish TV be any more reasonable ? ....
If not, is there another small dish alternative ? We gave up the 10 ft dish many years ago and really do not want to go that route again.
Thanks, J.R.

 

[GeorgeLV]

Um, actually it's Dish with the phone police that harass customers. Just tell DirecTV you're cell phone only. At the very worst you be asked to read off all you activated receiver ids when you install new equipment.

 

[His Self]

Thank you, I know I had called DirecTV in May to try and ascertain the telephone policy and the person on the phone was sticking to the "you must have your receiver connected to a land line telephone" stock answer...Which after 200 days of no connection appears patently false. I figured they would insist on it for upgrading to HD Receiver/Tivo.

Do you know if DirecTV has any great deals for existing customers to upgrade to the HD TV Receiver/Tivo unit ? Or will I get tapped for the full cost of the unit ?
Sorry to ask so many questions, but the standard DirecTV site wants me to log in with ID for acessing upgrade ifo , which I can't do because I forgot my old member name's password , DirecTV wants to send the forgotten password info to my old email address and I can't seem to change my email address without the password..but when I try and register all over again, it will not allow me to because the name on my DirecTV account is already registered...seems a Catch-22 situation and absurd just to find out if there is any upgrade deals for existing customers. That simple ifo should not require a log-in and jumping through hoops.
Thanks, J.R.