Sky Digiboxes kill BT broadband exchanges - urban myth or true?

[Bob Crabtree]

So it kills Radio 5 and screws BT?

Where can I buy one?

And that tribute is from someone who, for preference, listens to Radio 5 in the car!

[BigBry]

.... they surely have a record of which customers have which models

There's nothing that stops anyone upgrading/changing their box via ebay (for example).

[chrestomanci]

There's nothing that stops anyone upgrading/changing their box via ebay (for example).

Many viewing cards are paired with the box they are in, and will refuse to work in any other box. Costomers who have replaced their box (via ebay etc) can call sky costomer services and get them to send a signal to re-pair the box and card.

The reason is to cut down on theft and shareing of cards. Before cards where paired, some places like pubs and socal clubs often had their viewing cards stolen, which sky would then have to replace. It is also hard for sky to remotely kill a stolen card, as it would have to be in a box at the time the kill signal is sent, so if the theif did not use it for a week or so after they stole it, and took it out when they were not watching TV, they could get several months of usage out of it before it would eventualy get killed.

Pairing of boxes to cards is done to make counterfeit cards harder to use.

[Blademrk]

Actually this is quite believable.

I've just upgraded to Sky Multi-room and have a Thomson Sky box in my room, I'm tied into keeping it plugged in to the phone line for a year (which I've got to be honest is a pain in the backside as it means I've got phone cables trailing everywhere). The other box is also tied into being plugged in, but that one doesn't seem to affect me.

The main problem is it can kill my net connection. I plug sky into a microfilter (in my room) along with my ADSL router.

I switch Sky on - my net connection dies.
I unplug Sky - my net connection returns.

My solution, either leave my sky box switched off at the wall unless there's something I want to watch or unplug sky from the phone line (which I'm not supposed to do) if I'm also using the net whilst watching sky.

[Bob Crabtree]

I just spoke to my contact's contact and I'm happy that the significant detail of the news story is correct.

Of course, it could be that the BT person who spoke to my contact's contact was talking from the rear end but that, I think, was a given any way.

[alymere]

I live in Hull and our sole broadband provider is Kingston Communications. Last week I had to have an engineer visit to solve a connection problem. First thing he did was disconnect the Sky+ from the phone line. This wasn't the cause of my problem in the end, just a dodgy phone wire to another phone in the house. But he told me that an area in the town on a different exchange did used to have problems. In the end it was tracked down to a single Sky digibox.

[autopilot]

Hey Bob, are you sure your contact had not been talking to one of these guys - http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=87790

[danroyle]

i have had sky for 15 months and never had any broadband problems except when i was with tiscali

so may just be a myth unless it is not going through the microfilter

[danroyle]

Actually this is quite believable.

I've just upgraded to Sky Multi-room and have a Thomson Sky box in my room, I'm tied into keeping it plugged in to the phone line for a year (which I've got to be honest is a pain in the backside as it means I've got phone cables trailing everywhere). The other box is also tied into being plugged in, but that one doesn't seem to affect me.

The main problem is it can kill my net connection. I plug sky into a microfilter (in my room) along with my ADSL router.

I switch Sky on - my net connection dies.
I unplug Sky - my net connection returns.

My solution, either leave my sky box switched off at the wall unless there's something I want to watch or unplug sky from the phone line (which I'm not supposed to do) if I'm also using the net whilst watching sky.

my box is a thomson too

out of interest you do not have to have the sky hooked to the phone for a year you just won't be able to order box office etc without it plugged in i had mine unplugged numerous times and even completely off for 3 months when my 2yr old son yanked the sky phone cable off the wall and broke it and didn't hook it back in til they replaced it when i moved

[Blademrk]

I've had my box switched off for weeks at a time - I only bother to switch it on if there's something I want to watch and if my parents/nephew is watching something else on the TV downstairs (we did get a letter from sky saying that both boxes needed to be connected or we would be charged an extra £10 a month for multi-room).

I'm just curious as to why Sky *needs* them to be connected to the phone line at all (if it's simply for ordering movies and "red button" access, which I have no intention of using, then the connection is pointless) and why put it in their T&Cs that it's necessary for the first year only?

[Funkstar]

i would hope that with sky broadband now available, they will start to offer boxes with ethernet ports instead of modems. surely that would be easer for Sky too, they would only need to run an internet server instead of hundreds of dialup lines

[chrestomanci]

i would hope that with sky broadband now available, they will start to offer boxes with ethernet ports instead of modems. surely that would be easer for Sky too, they would only need to run an internet server instead of hundreds of dialup lines

They will put ethernet interfaces but that won't help you.

From what I have heard, Sky's long term plan is to include an ADSL modem in their boxes, so that as well as decoding satelite TV, the box also acts as your router. If you disconnect the phone line, the box will have no way of communicating with the outside world.

If Sky boxes had ethernet interfaces, (or for that matter would let you connect a modem to the box's seral port) it would be easer to operate a box outside the UK, while making it appear to be in the UK, which is not something sky want to happen.

The other thing is that Sky don't need modem banks for their boxes, because your local digital telephone exchange does the job. When you make any phone call, your local exchange digitises your voice and transmits it over the BT digital network at 64kbps, the echange at the other end converts it back. In the case of ISPs, Sky etc, the digital signal is sent straight to the ISP, and they decode the modem tones in software without a modem.

[Funkstar]

ah, that all mekes sense. Been so long since i used or thought about dialup, i forgot the exchange does all the hard work these days

[atifds9]

This is not as far fetched as you may think, i have seen a update from BT Openreach with regards to faulty BB signals that specifically point to a particular digi box casuing the issue, they won't mention make or model. I work for a very large ISP but i have only seen one report of this so obv not very widespread.

[kopite]

Of course, there's one way of checking if your Sky Digibox is one of the models in question - bring near it a portable radio receiving Radio 5.

Kind of true.

THe actual frequency needed is radio 4 long wave.

I work for an ISP and after a few conversations with BT special faults team they told me that Radio 4 LW works on a similar frequency to ADSL. IF you start to get white noise when listening to radio 4 lw then its possible that any intermittency you are experiencing on yours DSL is caused by this.

ALso in regards to SKy digiboxes causing issues I had been dealing with a customers DSL fault for the past few months. He was on DSL max and the speeds would fluctuate from 5-6 meg down to 2-300 kbps. Because of this the DSL speed was stuck at a few 100 kbps. After a lot of hard work by us we managed to get BT to investigate it fully and the problem turned out to be a dodgy sky box.

[chrestomanci]

I'm just curious as to why Sky *needs* them to be connected to the phone line at all (if it's simply for ordering movies and "red button" access, which I have no intention of using, then the connection is pointless) and why put it in their T&Cs that it's necessary for the first year only?

Two reasons. Firsty the box uploads viewing statistics to Sky from time to time (in the middle of the night, about once a week). Armed with all that data, sky can get a better price for their advertising slots than other channels that reley on estimates and are 4 weeks out of date.

Secondly, by insisting that the box is connected to a phone line, they make sure that it is easy to connect, so that ocasonal users still order the odd pay per view movie or the like. If people had to find a phone extenson cable or drag your box accross the living room to hook it up to a phone line just to order a pay per view move, then most would not bother, and Sky would loose the revenue.