DirecTivo with no phone

[BeerRun]

This has probably been answered before but I'm not finding it anywhere. Sorry if it's been beaten to death.

I have a DirecTivo, Samsung S4040R, that I used several years ago. I just moved into a place and have a Comcast DVR that is just horrible to me so I'm thinking about picking DirecTV back and using my exsisting DirecTivo. The problem lies in the fact that we have no landline, only cell phones and the receiver hasnt been updated since 01/2005.

From what I can gather the receiver only uses the the phone line for initial setup, which it already has, and software update. The actual programming information comes through the dish and shouldnt be affected. Am I understanding this correctly? Will I even need a phone line at all since its actually already been through setup a year ago or are there critical software updates that are needed to make it work now?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

[BlindLemonLarry]

This has probably been answered before but I'm not finding it anywhere. Sorry if it's been beaten to death.

From what I can gather the receiver only uses the the phone line for initial setup, which it already has, and software update. The actual programming information comes through the dish and shouldnt be affected. Am I understanding this correctly? Will I even need a phone line at all since its actually already been through setup a year ago or are there critical software updates that are needed to make it work now?
Well, it has been beaten to death...the good news is that this is a rather friendly forum, and you probably won't get beaten to death for asking!

You're basically correct...once setup, the phone line isn't mission critical. Eventually you'll get a daily nag screen, which you can click through and ignore. With no phone line, you should order PPV through the DirecTV website. Initial setup and (if necessary) software updates can all be accomplished through a serial/PPP connection, which is pretty easy to get going if you have a Windows XP box with internet access. If you still have 3.1, you'll want to let the box "self-upgrade" to 6.2, it's a big improvement.

Good luck.

[BeerRun]

Initial setup and (if necessary) software updates can all be accomplished through a serial/PPP connection, which is pretty easy to get going if you have a Windows XP box with internet access.

This is fantastic news. Now I just need to figure out how to do this.

Thanks for your quick help!

[wkearney99]

If you get an InstantCake CD from PTVnet.com you can use a PC to setup the drive so that it never needs to make the phone call. Ever, not even during initial setup. I just re-formatted my two DirecTivo units and it works great.