Phone lines

[dcdivenut]

I am in the process of switching to Dish Network and I have a question about phone lines.

I use cable for my high speed access (RCN has a 10 Mbps modem) since I work from home a lot and my girlfriend and I both have big cell plans. Anyway.. we are looking to ditch out land line since we never use it and I just moved Tivo onto a wireless adapter.

Other than updates and PPV what am I missing if I don't have the satellite boxes hooked up to a phone line? The CSR couldn't come up with much and I don't really order PPV that often (from what I understand without a phone line you are just limited to how many you can have on your bill) so what are the downsides?

How often do software updates come out and is there a way to force retrieve them by say bringing them to a friends house with a phone line and dialing in?

Thanks...

[Geronimo]

I believe that s/w updates are all via satellite. You are missing the ability to order PPV through the remote but not much elses.

[KingLoop]

what am I missing if I don't have the satellite boxes hooked up to a phone line?
Also if you have a 322, 522, 625, or 942 you will pay and additional $5 per month, per dual tuner receiver.

[dcdivenut]

I am getting the 811 so I don't have to worry about that. ($5/month)

Also, what is the deal with having to turn off the box to get software updates that I keep reading about. Since I have a stand alone tivo I never turn off my cable box in case it is recording stuff overnight (like it does with a lot of the HBO stuff) and I don't want to have to worry about that. I guess I can check in here and see when new software is coming anyway and whether to get it or avoid it :)

Thanks for the help, even if I was going to keep my landline I am glad I don;t have to run the cable to box since the last thing my girlfriend wants is more cables around the living room :D

[moedog]

Ahhhh---the newest hip, cool in thing to do---get rid of your trusty land line telphone. That way, you'll have the thrill of always wondering if any 911 calls get routed to who knows where, instead of your local emergency center. You'll also get the happiness of having to space your calls as to not run your cell battery down, not to mention the joy of losing all telephone service the next time one of DC's famous ice storms brings your power down, preventing you from recharging your phone. But of course, cell systems absolutely never go down. I mean, you've never had one of your calls scrambled, have you? And you never get that pesky fast busy signal when your local tower is too busy, do you? But its all good, the tone quality of a cell and the comfort of the handset is just so much better than what you get with that old fashioned wired phone. Of course it's stylish to get rid of the land line phone, so go for it....

[James Long]

Ahhhh---the newest hip, cool in thing to do---get rid of your trusty land line telphone. That way, you'll have the thrill of always wondering if any 911 calls get routed to who knows where, instead of your local emergency center.Do you work for the wired phone company? :D The last time I had to call 911 from home it was a seven digit number ... 15 years ago last week to be exact and it is the only time I've dialed "911" one other time - on my cellphone when someone else went off the road. That was 5 years ago?

I rather not make my telephony decisions based on fear about my next call.

JL

[rcwilcox]

[QUOTE=justalurker

I rather not make my telephony decisions based on fear about my next call.

JL[/QUOTE]
Nor do I but I personally would not want to depend exclusively on my cell phone. Too many times having trouble getting a signal or dead battery etc Also for those of us with a larm systems those systems are designed to use a land based line. I simply did away with my cable and use DSL for internet so I look at it as a land line comes with my internet the same as cable comes with those people's internet who get it from a cable co.

[larrystotler]

Haven't had a landline since 1997.

My cable modem is 4-10 times FASTER than any DSL I have seen, even the one at the office. I consistently get 300-400+kb/s on it, whereas DSL is maxed out at 100 in my area. DSL is only available within 5 WIRE miles of a main switch, and that is a big problem here. While I despise Adelphia's TV service, their cable modems kick butt. My friend has the premeir package and gets 600+ on her d/ls.

I looked into Vonage, and I must say I wasn't impressed. While it is cheaper than my cell phone, it really doesn't offer anything I really need.

As for Cell phones, I have had service from just about ever company, and they all suck. However, as an installer, I need to be reachable all the time and a cell is pretty much the only way. As for the 911 on cells, all you do is request the appropriate agency you need, and they transfer you. While not ideal, it has worked for me many times when calling in accidents, etc.

[dcdivenut]

Ahhhh---the newest hip, cool in thing to do---get rid of your trusty land line telphone. That way, you'll have the thrill of always wondering if any 911 calls get routed to who knows where, instead of your local emergency center. You'll also get the happiness of having to space your calls as to not run your cell battery down, not to mention the joy of losing all telephone service the next time one of DC's famous ice storms brings your power down, preventing you from recharging your phone. But of course, cell systems absolutely never go down. I mean, you've never had one of your calls scrambled, have you? And you never get that pesky fast busy signal when your local tower is too busy, do you? But its all good, the tone quality of a cell and the comfort of the handset is just so much better than what you get with that old fashioned wired phone. Of course it's stylish to get rid of the land line phone, so go for it....

Well I have been land line free in my last 2 residences. I always lived with groups of guys, and it was just a lot easier than splitting a phone bill. Now that I live with my girfriend I don't have that to worry about but I wonder why I am paying $40 a month for a phone we never use?

I get free LD on my cell and I have more minutes than I know what to do with, especially with unlimited nights and weekends, free mobile to mobile, and rollover.

As far as call quality goes.. maybe it is because I am a phone junky but I get very good signal and servie on my phone from my house, and I use a bluetooth headset so comfort is not an issue

As far as safety... I have lived in DC for 11 years and I am not sure what you mean about these "famous ice storms" since I don't ever recall one, much less taking out the power! I always keep a spare battery charged on a desktop charger since I have to have my phone on all the time for work and I have a car charger so I think I am covered. As far as 911 service goes, all cell phones are GPS locatable so EMS dispatchers can find you.

But again it is fun to be stylish so I guess I'll just get rid of the phone for that reason and not think it through at all!!! :uglyhamme

[James Long]

Nor do I but I personally would not want to depend exclusively on my cell phone. I simply did away with my cable and use DSL for internet so I look at it as a land line comes with my internet the same as cable comes with those people's internet who get it from a cable co.I have DSL on my phone line. The pair is cheaper than cable internet. A couple of weeks ago something went wrong in the telco side wiring and the phone service went out (low voltage?) but DSL remained. Funny that it took a week for me to bother to call it in. :D

I have good cell service and the phone is always charged and ready to run. My previous carrier was garbage, but I've never had problems with my current carrier. My wife and I have considered cutting the land line but DSL is not always available on inactive lines and it is nice to have a non-cell number to give to people you don't want to talk to 24x7. (My cell must ring 24x7 for emergency calls from work.)

In any case ... I don't make my decision on whether or not to have a phone line based on worrying about a 911 call I'm not likely going to make.

JL

[larrystotler]

As far as safety... I have lived in DC for 11 years and I am not sure what you mean about these "famous ice storms" since I don't ever recall one, much less taking out the power! I always keep a spare battery charged on a desktop charger since I have to have my phone on all the time for work and I have a car charger so I think I am covered. As far as 911 service goes, all cell phones are GPS locatable so EMS dispatchers can find you.

Come west to Winchester and see Ice Storms.......

As for the GPS, most of the time, they can't find anyone to track them. There was that story about the woman in Richmond that was kidnapped a while back and Sprint was unable to give the cops her location for some unknown reason. Digital phones are supposedly trackable within 5 feet in digital mode.

[Alchemy]

Anyway.. we are looking to ditch out land line since we never use it and I just moved Tivo onto a wireless adapter.


If that wireless adapter works by providing the Tivo with a POTS-like line why not just use a telephone "Y" adapter to feed both the 811 and Tivo? I dont know, but I wouldnt think Dish would have a higher speed modem in the 811 than Tivo uses, since the Tivo gets a bunch of guide data, and the 811 just does PPV reporting. My 811 has reported in just fine over POTS, cable telephone, and now Vonage (with *99 prefix). The Dish box already "plays nice" by not interrupting a voice call for data send, and I bet the Tivo does the same, so you wouldnt have access "crashes" either.

As to the somewhat irrelevent "what's better?" discussion: A local area-wide 8+ hour power outage killed Vonage VoIP immediately (of course), telco POTS in about an hour, and cable telephone in about a hour and a half - longer than POTS from the "newer competition" - sure not how things used to be. And the cell phone worked the *whole* time :)

Edit: It occured to me me afterwards that maybe you meant "wireless" as in WiFi, not a CellSocket-like product to use your cell phone at home that produces a POTS-like output usable with regular home phones and devices. If so, apologies for making assumptions. Ive never had a Tivo, so I dont know how fancy they are these days - seems reasonable they would use your high speed internet connection with more data and more features (Google or Yahoo tie-ins in the future?), rather than 800# dialup, but then, my 811 and 921 still use dialup...

[dcdivenut]

I did indeed mean wifi. I am actually quite surprised that Dish or Direct TV have not started using home network access.

Tivo has had it for a while and recently started using it for it's Tivo To Go application which allows you to transfer recorded shows to your computer and burn them to DVD, so you could burn your backlog of shows and watch them on your next flight or long car trip or whatever. There are some hiccups and limitations but on the whoel it is pretty cool. It also allows for the Home Media Option which allows you to view photos on your computer on your TV and (what I use it for) stream your mp3 collection from your PC to your TV, or in my case, my home theater stereo.

I guess the satellite boxes get their guide data via satellite so they do not have that need, but it just seems that there would be a lot of functionality that they could develop that would make it worthwhile, as well as addressing the two way communication issue for PPV.

[dcdivenut]

Come west to Winchester and see Ice Storms.......

As for the GPS, most of the time, they can't find anyone to track them. There was that story about the woman in Richmond that was kidnapped a while back and Sprint was unable to give the cops her location for some unknown reason. Digital phones are supposedly trackable within 5 feet in digital mode.


You know it is funny how different the weather patterns are between Winchester and DC, or even Ashburn and DC. Distance wise it is not that far, but weather wise it is huge. I have friends that live in Ashburn and there were times they were getting HIT by snow this winter and we were getting nothing!


Gues it is because we are just more stylish here in the city :rolleyes:

[hockeyinsd]

Also, what is the deal with having to turn off the box to get software updates that I keep reading about. Since I have a stand alone tivo I never turn off my cable box in case it is recording stuff overnight (like it does with a lot of the HBO stuff) and I don't want to have to worry about that. I guess I can check in here and see when new software is coming anyway and whether to get it or avoid it :)
Its been said here b4 on the whole workaround for the auto shutoff everynight. My dish receiver gets it update at 3AM. I give it 59 minutes to do the work or whatever, so I have an autotune timer set on my dish receiver (322). So at 3:59am it tunes to channel 107. The reason for 3:59 and not 4am is that if the tivo tries to change the channel to record something at 4am, 1/2 the time it doesn't work because the receiver turns on at the same time. The only drawback is you lose that hour when you can record things (although not a lot is on from 3am-4am).

[larrystotler]

You know it is funny how different the weather patterns are between Winchester and DC, or even Ashburn and DC. Distance wise it is not that far, but weather wise it is huge. I have friends that live in Ashburn and there were times they were getting HIT by snow this winter and we were getting nothing!

Yeah, the weather patterns move northeast as they go by, so we get some nasty stuff. However, go out to Cumberland or Oakland MD, and they get it much worse due to the mountains. Anyway, the reason that sat receivers don't work with networks is that the sat receiver uses the POTs caller ID info to inform the uplink centers WHERE is unit is actually located. Supporting Vonage and the like wouldn't give them this information, so they refuse to support it and they probably try to make it as incompatible as they can.

[SimpleSimon]

As far as 911 service goes, all cell phones are GPS locatable so EMS dispatchers can find you.Wrong.

You've been watching too many cop shows.

SOME cell phones, IF they are on a tower that supports it, CAN send location info. This functionality wll expand over the next few years. IIRC, it's supposed to be "most everywhere" by sometime in 2008.

[Alchemy]

Yeah, the weather patterns move northeast as they go by, so we get some nasty stuff. However, go out to Cumberland or Oakland MD, and they get it much worse due to the mountains. Anyway, the reason that sat receivers don't work with networks is that the sat receiver uses the POTs caller ID info to inform the uplink centers WHERE is unit is actually located. Supporting Vonage and the like wouldn't give them this information, so they refuse to support it and they probably try to make it as incompatible as they can.

The location question is a good point. My first impulse was to say they should install ANI2 instead and know the real calling number that cant be spoofed on the national swirched network, but even that wouldnt work with Vonage (for example) because it would show it was originated in NJ or NY where they interface to the switched network (or the "original" unverifiable declared location by Vonage - just as bad) - that wouldnt be good for me in 619/So. Califonia! The internet is even more difficult with each ISP using its own coding to indicate the true origin of the connection. With Cox its really obvious, but I've seen some that I couldnt guess from other ISPs.

You've pointed out a problem a lot bigger than sat receivers, and one that needs to be solved with (yuck) small region restricted Digital Rights Management of all kinds of programming/media in the near future. The whole idea annoys me immensely, but that is not going to stop it. :)

[Nick]

I haven't had a landline connected since I ordered a PPV from E* and they billed me double, accusing me of trying to steal free movies (???). After that, I yanked every RJ-11 and locked all my IRDs. In almost 5 years, I've never paid for another PPV. Screw them and screw their phony phone line requirement.

Come to think of it, I haven't even had a landline since the turn of the Millennium. :D

[larrystotler]

Come to think of it, I haven't even had a landline since the turn of the Millennium. :D

Yeah, landlines as SOOOOOOOO last century! :D :D

Also, love your sig - I was thinking of poking fun at that one myself, but your's is great.