The cost of sticking with Dial-Up

[healeydave]

Hi All,

Without wanting to be accused of a higher agenda (e.g. promoting tivoland Cachecard sales), I thought I would share a few recent experiences.

Whilst I make no bones that I do truly believe networking your TiVo is defiantly the best option long term, I have had reason to upgrade a family member recently due dial-up reliability issues and it appears I need to upgrade another family member due to excessive call costs too.

My brother was the first upgrade requirement, he was the unfortunate victim of the 2Hr+ call problem. This happened to him a number of times (also before the 2 hour cut-off was implemented) and he had over £40 of calls related to TiVo on his last bill.
Needless to say, I wish I had upgraded him to a cachecard sooner rather than waste over £40 on calls charges.

Similar story for my parents-in-law. Not sure if they suffered any problematic calls, but after speaking to them yesterday, their bill has just come in and they advised me that 64 calls to the 0845 number in the last 2 months came to something like £29 I think they said!

[18MM]

0161 ok with BT anytime calls

[SolidTechie]

In the interests of balance and fairness, a turboNZnet card is a cheaper option than the cachecard, saving around £30-50 depending on how much RAM you would want to use in a CacheCard.

[mikerr]

Or a serial cable for under a tenner...

[healeydave]

Or a serial cable for under a tenner...

Serial is not an convenient option for either my brother or parents-in-law.

In the interests of balance and fairness, a turboNZnet card is a cheaper option than the cachecard, saving around £30-50 depending on how much RAM you would want to use in a CacheCard.

When it comes to installing a cachecard, I don't intend on putting any memory in, it will just be used for networking, also cost difference is negligible for me, which is why its not worth me stocking the TurboNets anymore.
Its worth noting, I'm not sure how many TurboNZnet cards are left, I'm pretty sure John from NZ doesn't want to get caught out again with a bunch of un-sold cards, the AltEPG was a welcome life-line to John as for a significant period of time he thought he was going to be stuck with the last batch he had made !

Bro is already upgraded anyway and whilst I will check if the parents-in-law have any call package options to cull the costs, I can't help thinking its going to be easier to just bite the bullet and install the cachecard anyway.

Its one of those jobs that once its done its done and I just know I'll be thanking myself at some point in the future for the benefits of easier access later, rather than kicking myself for not doing it

[socrates]

I've just switched to the 0161 number with BT anytime ( free ) but before that I was using the 0845 number. Although most 0845 numbers are free with this calling plan BT recognised it as an ISP and so charged. Even so my daily calls were only costing between 14p and 21p so I'm surprised at the calling charges cited above. I reckon £1 per week or less was good value, though obviously free is even better.

I'd also like to say how impressed I have been by the reliability of the service. My very first call after switching to altepg took a frighteningly long time but most now are around 2 mins - the longest was about 5 mins. And so far as I can see no calls have failed since the first couple of weeks post switch.

So in short I feel no pressure to network - a blessing since the layout of the house would make getting network access from the TIVO's location a real pain.

[mhampshire]

Hi All,

Without wanting to be accused of a higher agenda (e.g. promoting tivoland Cachecard sales), I thought I would share a few recent experiences.

Whilst I make no bones that I do truly believe networking your TiVo is defiantly the best option long term, I have had reason to upgrade a family member recently due dial-up reliability issues and it appears I need to upgrade another family member due to excessive call costs too.

My brother was the first upgrade requirement, he was the unfortunate victim of the 2Hr+ call problem. This happened to him a number of times (also before the 2 hour cut-off was implemented) and he had over £40 of calls related to TiVo on his last bill.
Needless to say, I wish I had upgraded him to a cachecard sooner rather than waste over £40 on calls charges.

Similar story for my parents-in-law. Not sure if they suffered any problematic calls, but after speaking to them yesterday, their bill has just come in and they advised me that 64 calls to the 0845 number in the last 2 months came to something like £29 I think they said!

How about gauranteed monthly call charges of £1.50 (ish) with a fixed call cost of 5 pence per call (regardless of length) as long as your relatives have a BT landline and are happy to register the number with another service (no call package change required) and use the bradford< corrected- manchester number the 0161> number- check this post for details: http://www.tivoland.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=970

Martin

[steveroe]

[...] use the bradford number [...]

Small point, but to avoid confusion; 0161 is Manchester, not Bradford (which was the 01274 number which has now been decomissioned)

[mhampshire]

[...] use the bradford number [...]

Small point, but to avoid confusion; 0161 is Manchester, not Bradford (which was the 01274 number which has now been decomissioned)

Thankyou Steve. Being a soft southerner my northern geography is pants. I shall from this point forward refer to the 0161 as the 'manchester number', otherwise I fear people might start digging up the defunct Bradford number.........and thats a whole nother thread waiting to happen..........

[PaulFraser]

My BT bill just came in and it is £50 higher than normal: £15 of ringback and £35 of calls, including one 7 hour one in June, ouch. I should have paid more attention to the box when it was doing all that dialling.
Having said that, worth it for the AltEPG. However, bi-daily calls are lasting around 1 hour and 10-15 minutes at the moment which is around a quid a go on my bill. Will look at the post above to see if there is any way I can remove the charge on this call otherwise network card for me...

PS I'm stuffed for the call charges I guess but can anyone tell me why there are so many ringbacks when it was just supposed to be making a straight call?

[DX30]

PS I'm stuffed for the call charges I guess but can anyone tell me why there are so many ringbacks when it was just supposed to be making a straight call?

The old 01274 was only a single line, so was often busy. Unfortunately following the dial prefix the original TiVo number was still being sent and this contained a 5, so triggering ringback if the line was busy. The new numbers have multiple lines so are unlikely to be busy so you probably won't have ringbacks in the future.

[BrokenStar]

Unfortunately following the dial prefix the original TiVo number was still being sent and this contained a 5, so triggering ringback if the line was busy.

Does anoyone know of an alternate Dial-in Configuration Code that would avoid triggering ringback?

[steveroe]

Unfortunately following the dial prefix the original TiVo number was still being sent and this contained a 5, so triggering ringback if the line was busy.

Does anoyone know of an alternate Dial-in Configuration Code that would avoid triggering ringback?

The ringback was being caused by a "5" in original Tivo phone number that was dialled following the dial of the prefix. As the original 01274 line was a single line then it was often engaged and the "5" triggered ringback.

The new 0161 number has multiple lines and should be rarely engaged, so ringback should no longer be an issue.

[healeydave]

I also pretty sure tivomas had the ringback disabled on the new lines. My brother also had a few of those rogue calls where-by the line was held open for several hours
One phone bill justified me installing a cachecard for him.

[millsb]

Unfortunately following the dial prefix the original TiVo number was still being sent and this contained a 5, so triggering ringback if the line was busy.

Does anoyone know of an alternate Dial-in Configuration Code that would avoid triggering ringback?

May not be relevant any more if ringback is disabled at the far end, but I think dial config 012 will stop TiVo triggering ringback. The (old) TiVo number for that config is 02079061000 (no 5's)