Apparently it has to do with the phone home features in the DirectTV boxes and installers were being penalized $5 per non-phone install. Thye were told to lie to customers saying the box MUST be installed to a phone line.They spoke to a TV station about the practice and got fired...http://www.local6.com/problemsolvers/9164122/detail.html
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Nearly 40 DirectTV Techs Fired After Local TV Station report
- Thread starter DJKraze
- Start date
K
KML0224
Guest
??? Does this happen with any cable companies as well? My Comcast cable converter has a phone jack on the back of it. However, it's never been used and I was able to order WWE pay-per-views in the past through the cable remote with no problems.
C
ccmfan
Guest
The person who made the decision to fire the 40 employees should be fired themselves, and the 40 employees rehired. 
I had Dish Network and only connected the phone line occasionally to order pay per view. I found out from one of their reps that if the phone isn't connected, it doesn't stop the order, but the billing might be delayed. They said the phone line only had to be connected occasionally for a few minutes for billing and updates, not continually.Now that I'm back on Charter cable, I've been told that I don't need a phone line for my converter box, because it's all handled through the cable.
I had Dish Network and only connected the phone line occasionally to order pay per view. I found out from one of their reps that if the phone isn't connected, it doesn't stop the order, but the billing might be delayed. They said the phone line only had to be connected occasionally for a few minutes for billing and updates, not continually.Now that I'm back on Charter cable, I've been told that I don't need a phone line for my converter box, because it's all handled through the cable.Yeah, I think it depends on how the local CATV service is set up, in the case of comcast in the Hartford region, they were originally set up for those billing stats to be send via the cable, and the phone jack on the back of the box is just there by default as most boxes these days have both to accommodate either type of ordering system.
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