[Stewart Vernon]

If you had two single tuner receivers you would be paying the $5 fee for that 2nd receiver no matter whether you connect to a phone or not.

To encourage compliance with phone connections... Dish adds the $5 credit incentive for their dual tuner receivers if you connect them to a phone line they will waive the fee.

Personally, if I were Dish... and knowing why they want the phone line connected... I might consider charging a fee on all receivers if no phone line was connected... so we should all be thankful they have not chosen to do that yet!

 

[Stewart Vernon]

The second tuner. You can't prove that you're not running two TVs off of your 622, can you?

And even if you use the 622 just to connect to one TV... you still get the use of both tuners (technically 3 counting OTA)... which is the equivalent to if you had two single tuner DVRs.

Not saying I agree with all the fees, incidentally... just that I understand them and don't find them to be as cryptic as some folks do.

 

[Stewart Vernon]

....but what is the relationship between 3 tunes and a phone line? You should either charge everyone the fee of no one. It seems like discrimination to me.:nono2:

Already explained in another post above... Also, keep in mind they are not charging you extra if you don't connect a phone line. They are giving you a $5 credit if you do connect. They always charge the $5 for the 2nd tuner in the dual-tuner receivers... they just credit you back $5 if you connect a phone line.

There is no $5 credit option available for single tuner receivers.

The real bottom line is that Dish sets up some rules for their service, and people either abide by them or not. Sometimes it costs you extra to disobey the rules, other times you get away with it.

 

[Stewart Vernon]

Okay I'll try again. Why do they give you a $5 credit for having a phone line? What does hooking a phone line to your 622 receiver accomplish for Dish so that they "give" you $5?

Why do you imply that I'm "disobeying the rules" because I use a cell phone and exactly what rule am I disobeying and "getting away with".?

For the record... I was not meaning to imply that you are cheating Dish or doing anything illegal. So I hope it didn't sound that way.

However, as JL iterated, the Dish terms of service do require connection of a phone line to all receivers. So any of us, including you or I, who are otherwise obeying the rules but do not connect a phone are disobeying the rules... so if Dish disables a receiver or charges $5 or whatever, then that is our penalty for agreeing to connect a phone line and then not doing so.

Dish wants phone lines connected for a couple of reasons... One is for PPV. If you order via remote, this is the only way the receiver can connect to tell Dish you watched a PPV movie. If you never watch PPV, then this is not a problem.

The other reason, and really the big one... is because this is the only way Dish has of verifying that the receiver is physically where you told them it would be used. Because of people that abuse the process and obtain multiple receivers and use them at multiple households and "share" the cost... they have to police all of us.

I've never stolen a CD or DVD or a piece of clothing... and yet every CD, DVD, clothes I buy has security protection devices on them to prevent me from stealing them... sometimes the store doesn't deactivate them properly when I purchase, and the alarm goes off and I have to show my receipt to the security guy at the store so he knows I didn't try to steal things.

This is the price the honest folks pay for the dishonest folks who kept abusing the system... so those of us who find the phone line connection an inconvenience should be "thanking" the crooks who forced this bit of security on us.. and not whining to Dish about it.

 

[Stewart Vernon]

There is no risk... if you do not connect the phone line to a Vip622... after a month or two when it has not called in you will start to see the $5 charge automatically on your bill and you will then have to connect a phone line and call Dish to have that charge removed again.