Dial-up affected by Sky Plus - please help!

telly-addict

For the past 4 years I have been running a work lap-top at home with dial-up into my work server through my home telephone line. Moved to broadband (Tesco) on my home PC about 6 months ago and have been able to run my work dial-up and home broadband in tandem with no major problems. My work dial-up has always been a little slow and flaky, but that's the best that the work server will currently provide.

I have had Sky (and Sky interactive) for a good 10 years and this has caused no problems. About 3 weeks ago I had Sky Plus installed and this has given me a real problem with my work dial-up. Either I can't get into my work server at all or the line speed is so slow as to make things unmanageable.

I've spent the last few days unplugging phones, Sky and the broadband filters to test what the problem is. I've finally identified the Sky interactive phone connection as the problem. Currently unplugged and I am able to use both home broadband and work dial-up. The Sky basics seem to be working fine also.

I've been in touch with Tesco and they have said that the broadband is working fine, so it's not their problem. Work tell me that dial-up is working from other phone lines and the lap-top is working fine, so not their problem. BT have checked the phone line, which is working fine. I've asked whether increasing the gain might help, but the engineer said that this would make no difference. Swapping around the two filters has made no difference.

1. Does anyone have any ideas how I might resolve?
2. Does it make a difference that the Sky interactive phone link is disconnected? I know that I won't be able to order films, use the interactive sservices or vote via the read button. But is it needed for anything else?

Any guidance would be appreciated!!

Confused telly-addict

wolfman

No, the phone line on a Sky box is basically one of the main ways Sky make their money at the moment, like you said, through voting, ordering films, gamestar etc... It's actually in the contract that you have to keep it connected at all times.

Personally, having been a developer for them, the dial-up is a slow and usually quite expensive process, that isn't really required. Apart from the voting, most of the things (shopping, playing games) you'd been better off (quicker, save money) popping into the next room and using your pc hooked up to the adsl.

F1F1

wolfman wrote:

No, the phone line on a Sky box is basically one of the main ways Sky make their money at the moment, like you said, through voting, ordering films, gamestar etc... It's actually in the contract that you have to keep it connected at all times.

I thought it was just for the first 12 months that it had to be connected. After that you can disconnect it if you want.

bbb_uk

F1F1 wrote:

I thought it was just for the first 12 months that it had to be connected. After that you can disconnect it if you want.

That is true of the Sky but I believe Sky+ has to be connected to a Telephone line at all times. The Sky+ box does "phone home" and tell Sky that it is connected and informs them of any PPV films you may have watched. I'm led to believe that after a certain period of Sky+ not being connected to a telephone line then Sky send you letter reminding you of the t&c and you have to have it connected to a telephone line at all times. I believe though it is more than a month of not having Sky+ connected to the telephone before you get this letter.

woo

it is but i expect as the sky plus is new and probably gained at a knock down price the contract will start all over again.

telly-addict

Thanks for all your comments to date. This all seems to make sense.

When getting the discounted £49 Sky Plus offer, there was no mention of new contract terms. Nothing has been sent out to me and I've signed nothing other than the confirmation of installation.

bbb_uk wrote:

That is true of the Sky but I believe Sky+ has to be connected to a Telephone line at all times. The Sky+ box does "phone home" and tell Sky that it is connected and informs them of any PPV films you may have watched. I'm led to believe that after a certain period of Sky+ not being connected to a telephone line then Sky send you letter reminding you of the t&c and you have to have it connected to a telephone line at all times. I believe though it is more than a month of not having Sky+ connected to the telephone before you get this letter.

Sounds like I need to disconnect the Sky telephone line as and when I am using dial-up and then reconnect afterwards. Hopefully then Sky will register that I am still connected.

Does anyone have any idea why the Sky connection may be disturbing the dial-up in the first place?

moneyuser

new sky+ installs only need to be connected to the phone line for 12mths like standard sky, according to my contract anyway. If you had a self install you wouldn't need it connected.

As to the problem, have you tried a different filter? It might not be good enough, or try daisy chaining a couple of filters together

wolfman

bbb_uk wrote:

That is true of the Sky but I believe Sky+ has to be connected to a Telephone line at all times. The Sky+ box does "phone home" and tell Sky that it is connected and informs them of any PPV films you may have watched. I'm led to believe that after a certain period of Sky+ not being connected to a telephone line then Sky send you letter reminding you of the t&c and you have to have it connected to a telephone line at all times. I believe though it is more than a month of not having Sky+ connected to the telephone before you get this letter.

I've had mine for 18 months now, and the phone line was never connected once, and I've not received one letter. I'm still effectively on a staff account though so maybe that's why.

bbb_uk

moneyuser wrote:

new sky+ installs only need to be connected to the phone line for 12mths like standard sky, according to my contract anyway...

Thanks for that. I'm sure when Sky+ was originally out it was worded that it had to be connected all the time (12months minimum wasn't mentioned I don't think) but it maybe that it doesn't apply anymore and it's only 12months minimum now (same as the older original Sky boxes).

telly-addict wrote:

...Does anyone have any idea why the Sky connection may be disturbing the dial-up in the first place?

As far as i'm aware the digiboxes just ring Sky once in a while so they know you still have phoneline connected and inform them of any PPV events you watched. Apart from that and maybe Sky+ box is trying to dial out whilst you are online or something then no. It would show up on the Sky+ box if it were trying to go online and phone home.

telly-addict

moneyuser wrote:

As to the problem, have you tried a different filter? It might not be good enough, or try daisy chaining a couple of filters together

Thanks again. Current filter simply says "Speedtouch ADSL filter" - any ideas for a better filter? Presumably daisy-chaining is putting 2 filters together? Where's the best/cheapest place to get a decent filter?

bbb_uk

wolfman wrote:

I've had mine for 18 months now, and the phone line was never connected once, and I've not received one letter. I'm still effectively on a staff account though so maybe that's why.

That could be why. I read somewhere (can't remember where but possibly DigitialSpy forums) that people had reported receiving letters from Sky concerning not having their Sky+ connected to the telephone line, etc.