Canceled my land line, now getting messages

[pederb]

Hello,

We just canceled our phone landline since we anyway only use our cellphones. Now there is this popup message telling me that I have to hook up the receiver to my phoneline or get charged a fee.

What gives?

 

[Pepper]

Dish charges a $5 additional receiver fee for the dual output receivers. This fee is waived if the receiver is continuously connected to the phone line.

 

[dougruss]

Charlie gets you one way or another !!!

 

[RandallA]

There's a new PIG in town.

 

[pederb]

Dish charges a $5 additional receiver fee for the dual output receivers. This fee is waived if the receiver is continuously connected to the phone line.

Do we know the purpose of this? I understand you need it if you order PPV.

 

[iafirebuff]

There's a new PIG in town.

I wonder why Charlie doesn't use those "Pig" ads anymore???????

 

[chadzx11]

They feel that with the impulse pay per view activate more people will order pay per view, since it is more convient that way. I guess they figured out that having to call in or log on was costing the PPV sales. Primestar wanted us to drop phonelines even in situations like yours for that reason.

 

[bill93civic]

found this on the dishnetwork website......

Why do I need a phone line connected to my receiver?

A phone line connection is required in order to provide non-interrupted programming. The phone line will not interfere with your telephone use. If the receiver is using the telephone line and someone picks up the telephone, the receiver will immediately stop and try again later. The same will be done if a call is received. The receiver will only use a toll free (800) number. This provides continuous access to DISH Network Pay-Per-View movies and events and allows use of the Customer Support Application and other Interactive TV applications on channel 100.


DISH Network Pay-Per-View purchases are stored within your receiver and limited to a specific purchase amount. The phone line connection allows your DISH Network Pay-Per-View purchases to download automatically and be processed by our computers. These purchases are then applied to your regular bill.


A phone line connection is also required with some of the features of dish home Interactive TV on channel 100. “dish home” is available on the models 3900, 4900, 111, 301, 311, 322, 501/508/510, 522, 625, 721, 811, and 942.

 

[Frostwolf]

I wonder what it would do if you connected it to a phone line simulator? It would think it had a phone connection, and you can program most phone selectors to give a busy signal or never answer.

 

[digiblur]

Hello,

We just canceled our phone landline since we anyway only use our cellphones. Now there is this popup message telling me that I have to hook up the receiver to my phoneline or get charged a fee.

What gives?

Pick up an SPA-1001 for $60 and configure it to FreeWorldDialup. It will let you and your receivers dial all the tollfree numbers you want with no monthly cost. You can even get a free incoming number located in Washington State with no monthly cost.

 

[BobaBird]

A phone line connection is required in order to provide non-interrupted programming.

The only interruption is the one created by Dish as described in post #1. Other than reporting PPV and the interactive parts of Dish Home, the phone line has NOTHING to do with providing programming, guide data, or software updates.

 

[dishcomm]

Hello,

We just canceled our phone landline since we anyway only use our cellphones. Now there is this popup message telling me that I have to hook up the receiver to my phoneline or get charged a fee.

What gives?

that is correct if you have a dual tuner receiver....If yours are single tuners,I'm stumped....To the best of my knowledge the only difference between a single and dual tuner is the phone connected to a dual tuner will save $5 per month by Dish forgiving an additional outlet fee.....
If yours are single tuner receivers then ther should be no aditional fee for a disconnect on your phone line..

 

[damaged]

I wonder what it would do if you connected it to a phone line simulator? It would think it had a phone connection, and you can program most phone selectors to give a busy signal or never answer.

I am not privy to how E* (or D* for that matter) call-ins work, but I would assume the nag screen will remain until a successful call is made, if so, a busy signal, or not answering, would probably not work, however, one could record a session of a call-in and use that recording to fool the receiver into thinking it was the real thing (in network security, this technique known as a replay attack), but that is far too easy, likely, a key exchange of some sort occurs, and likely an encrypted session is setup for authentication, meaning a 'replay' attack would not work as each session would be different.

Being that neither E* or D* are new to this game, chances are encrypted sessions and key exchanges would be the norm, either way, attempts to decrypt the channel for analysis, could be deemed civilly litigable at the least (TOS violation), and possibly criminal at the most (DCMA), and if the methods you mention could be made to work, that too could be a violation of TOS (if they found out) and/or civil consequences. IANAL, this is just conjecture.

I am not preaching, just this interested me, and am hoping maybe someone here does have some idea of the call-in process.

That being said, to the OP, I echo the Freeworld (or a similar service) suggestion.

 

[miguelaqui]

It has to call E* so that he wil not get charged...what difference will it make if it gets a busy signal ? If the receiver does not call E*, they will put the $5 fee on his bill.

 

[kb7oeb]

If you try the voip route make sure you are not using any compression or it will not work, pick G711 as your codec, its not compressed.

 

[srs913]

Call Dish and tell them you need a phone bypass put on that receiver and that will take away the annoying message.

 

[boomerang]

As has been discussed here many times before, many people are dropping land lines for cellular. Charlie is forcing people to keep phone lines they don't need or want to avoid an additional fee.

I would imagine PPV could be disabled with no phone connection present. This should be incorporated into new receivers.

Charlie seems to like to sue when he feels it's necessary. Dish may need to get sued themselves over this to resolve it. POTS is going away. The infrastructure is ancient and costly to maintain. Keeping phone lines to satisfy Charlie is arguably contrary to the best interests of Dish. These monies help his competitors, with FIOS being one example.

 

[digiblur]

As has been discussed here many times before, many people are dropping land lines for cellular. Charlie is forcing people to keep phone lines they don't need or want to avoid an additional fee.

I would imagine PPV could be disabled with no phone connection present. This should be incorporated into new receivers.

Charlie seems to like to sue when he feels it's necessary. Dish may need to get sued themselves over this to resolve it. POTS is going away. The infrastructure is ancient and costly to maintain. Keeping phone lines to satisfy Charlie is arguably contrary to the best interests of Dish. These monies help his competitors, with FIOS being one example.

Who says you have to keep a POTS line to avoid an additional fee? No POTS line here and I even ordered a few PPV's.

 

[David]

My mother is an elderly widow on a fixed income who recently dropped the land line and all it's associated costs in favor of being part of my family plan for only $10 per month. Why should she be penalized $5 per month?