Sky Digital and VOIP

fisab

Hi All,

I apologise if this topic has already been covered - if so, could someone point me to it.

Sky Digital demands a connection to a telephone.
I know its needed for ordering box office movies, but apart from that I'm not sure when else it is needed (apart from getting viewing stats from you).

Any idea if the Sky equipment would be able to handle a VOIP setup (probably blueface).

This is my last obstacle to ditching the analogue service.

Thanks in advance for any info on the matter.

Zapho

Well I think the contract with Sky is that you have to leave the phone line connected for one year, but infairness that doesn't really matter. I've never plugged mine in, even though I've laid down a phone line especially for it. So unless you want to use Box office I'd say leave it out altogether!

aaronc

fisab wrote:

Hi All,

I apologise if this topic has already been covered - if so, could someone point me to it.

Sky Digital demands a connection to a telephone.
I know its needed for ordering box office movies, but apart from that I'm not sure when else it is needed (apart from getting viewing stats from you).

Any idea if the Sky equipment would be able to handle a VOIP setup (probably blueface).

This is my last obstacle to ditching the analogue service.

Thanks in advance for any info on the matter.

From speaking to a Sky installer the answer to the question is no. The Sky box does apparently use the phone line to send modem signals and this will almost always fail over a VoIP line.

Aaron

paulm17781

Is that the same with burglar alarms?

WillieFlynn

paulm17781 wrote:

Is that the same with burglar alarms?

Possibly, depending if they use DTMF tones or a modem to comunicate and at what speed (300 baud may work but 56k most lightly will fail). Just rember that you will also need a UPS on you network equipment.

I have come across some alarm company websites in the US who sell standard ATA boxes for use with alarms they sell. So in some cases it works.

Alarm companies (or sky) will most slightly say it doesn't work even if it does because they have not tested it.

Willie

WillieFlynn

To see what would happen to a modem on a VoIP line, I tried using a modem to connect to various Dial up ISP using VoIP (via blueface) and it doesn't work. I could hear the modem trying to connect at different speeds and eventualy gave up.

So I would be supprised if Sky works. Sky will have to start changing their boxes if the migration to VoIP starts to happen in a similar way to that which I have seen has started in the US.

Some alarms which use DTMF tones may work over VoIP but normal modems don't seem to like it.

Willie.

yankinlk

Okay this is a bit of a disapointment if its true. I just got my VOIP line setup with the main purpose of satisfying my SKY commitment (they have sent me 6 threatening letters). So far delighted with the service from Blueface - even got my own local number. Took about 20 minutes to setup from taking it out of the box, signing up an account with blueface, entering the config, and making my first call. Best of all i can pay for it using paypal.

I have Granstream Handytone 486 using blueface. I will test this weekend and post back my results.

yankinlk

any suggestions on how i can test this? I have it connected now and it says "phone connected" but how can PROVE that its working?

paulm17781

yankinlk wrote:

any suggestions on how i can test this? I have it connected now and it says "phone connected" but how can PROVE that its working?

Try buying a movie on sky box office or order porn ?

yankinlk

paulm17781 wrote:

Try buying a movie on sky box office or order porn ?

well that did work... but does that prove anything? i tried one of those gaming things on sky active but that did not work. im confused.

i thought it was possible to order movies even without the phone connected...am i wrong?

yankinlk

29-Jun-05 20:35:57 0818220016 Ireland - NationalCall 0818 Off Peak 00:00:23 .082 .063 0.937 SubPayAsYouGo

that appeared in my bluface account from when i tried to connect the gaming service, does that prove that it worked - even though i wasnt able to make the gaming serivce connect when i requested an id.

nothing appeared in my blueface account after i ordered the movie - ??

yankinlk

ill continue testing and put my replies over here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=2981873#post2981873

WillieFlynn

yankinlk wrote:

well that did work... but does that prove anything? i tried one of those gaming things on sky active but that did not work. im confused.

i thought it was possible to order movies even without the phone connected...am i wrong?

I read somewhere that the sky cards have a credit limit, so it is possible to order movies up to that with out it having to dial back. The box will try to phone home once a month or if it exceeds the limit.

As for the letters about not having it connected to a phone, try playing thick...... ring them over your VoIP line and say that this is the line you have have the sky box connected to and you have no idea why you are getting the letters. Give no information they do not specificly ask for and see what happens. I'm sure the letter or anything else they sent you, doesn't say you can't use a VoIP line :-)

If they eventualy find out it is VoIP line and say you can't use it, say you will complain to the advertising standards body as they didn't say you couldn't use VoIP phone line. Have Fun!!!!

WillieFlynn

Here are two links I have found on running modem over IP:

http://www.voip-info.org/wiki-Modem+over+VOIP
http://www.commsdesign.com/design_corner/OEG20030312S0017

One suggestion they give is that you use the G.711 codec for your modem calls.

causal

Just for reference, there were a couple of threads about running various things over VoIP (fax, credit card machines, visa etc.):
The MrPUdding "Get rid of Eircom" project
Running Visa Machines,Lottery Machines and Fax Machine off VoIP?

Basically, the higher the sample rate used for VoIP and the lower the baud rate the modem connects at - the better the chance you'll get it to work.
For example: Using G711u can (but not guaranteed) support a 14,400bps fax transmission; but it won't support a 56k modem connection.

So if it's possible to get the Sky box to connect at a lower speed it will increase the chances of success.
Does anyone know what speed the digibox uses?

causal

yankinlk

thanks guys, ill read all those links and see what i can do... i have both the sky plus box and mirror sub on the old sky box so maybe i can get at least one of them to dialback.

fatherdougalmag

As far as I remember the Sky contract says that you only need to have your box connected to the phone line for the first year. Thereafter you can disconnect the phone line. We had the phone line connected to the digibox for about 2 years and then moved house but never connected the phone line and never had any trouble with Sky. So worst case scenario is that you only need your phone line for a year before having to ditch it. I think that they hope you will try Box Office and other things like registering high-scores when playing games. All upgrades are doing over the satellite link.

WillieFlynn

I would be intrested to know if Sky's boxes work with Smart Telecom's
phone service as it is based on VoIP (from the exchange).

air

Regarding SMART, I'm pretty certain that it would work.
AFAIK all telephone networks are packet based at the backend they my be both IP (Packet switched) and / or ATM (circuit switched).
When you connect directly to say eircom dialup with your 56k modem, the digital data that you wish to send/received is modulated onto your phone line in the range 0-4khz.
At your local exchange this would be sampled and packetised for transport to the ISP.
As I understand it the reason that your modem might not work where you are using VOIP for the first leg of your journey is that the jitter & lack of bandwidth would cause problems.
Once you get into the trunk network successfully (as you would using pots --> SMART) you would be home free as it doesnt matter what way they handle the traffic after that. They packet switch it etc, but they have sufficient QOS & good enough networks that we don't know about it.

WillieFlynn

I asked a friend to try using a modem over Smart's voice line........ and it doesn't work...... So sky will start having fun with these people as will anyone using a monitered alarm...

JimmySmith

With high uptake of voip in the uk and nw here sky will have to make sure that their new untis support voip.
i for one will not be getting a phonelineif i want hdtv. I'll just do without and stick with my voip.

BigMoose

Surely Sky dont have to do anything with VoIP - they only want to send data. Stick an ethernet port in the box and use broadband!

When enough people dont have a POTS line but broadband becomes the norm then they will have to do something. However I dont think the UK ISP market has many wireless providors and those on cable are hardly likely to want Sky TV and the rest all have a usable phoneline for the sky modem, so it might be a while - which is a real sod else I'd move to Sky from NTL.

WillieFlynn

The big problem they will have is when BT moves its back-end over to VoIP as they are doing over the next few years....... soon there will be no POTS lines in the UK...

BigMoose

Surely they'll still have to support analog modems - however they do it in the back end? (we're going somewhat off topic here I know!) I still think the most obvious thing for Sky to do is support broadband straight from the digibox. Must be less hassle their end too.

paulm17781

BigMoose wrote:

I still think the most obvious thing for Sky to do is support broadband straight from the digibox. Must be less hassle their end too.

I agree, the only thing is that users would have to configure the boxes themselves. I would be fine with this but the likes of my parents would be lost!

BigMoose

Very true, didn't think of that! Which is silly as the first thing my parents would do is call me and say "the buggering thing doesn't work, can you fix it?"... However a modem port and an ethernet port with DHCP would be handy!

paulm17781

BigMoose wrote:

Very true, didn't think of that! Which is silly as the first thing my parents would do is call me and say "the buggering thing doesn't work, can you fix it?"... However a modem port and an ethernet port with DHCP would be handy!

Do we have the same parents?

Even with a modem/ethernet port there would still be issues, my parents BB is a different room to the sky box, they also have cable BB so it would have to connect to a router though.

colin300

Personally there is only one way to deal with this situation with sky and simply it is order the system and wait till it is installed and the dish is up and explain it first to the installer what you are going to do!!!!!! so he is on the same page then ring sky and say to them you did not understand that a telephone line had to b connected and that u dont have one and now u want the system to be removed since you will not be able to use it. And listen to them squirm they will eventually concede and allow it.

All new contracts must have a connection to the phone and they phone hom at least once a month and if it isn't connected they ring you which is kind of them.

damo605

I just seen this thread as I I just started playing with VOIP (Got great results with AIX and good results with Blueface).
I have no phoneline and have sky digital - At the time of ordering I told them I didn't have a phone line and the only difference was I couldn't get special offers and there was approx €30 installation fee but half price subscription fee for the first 2 months which cancelled this out.
Even talked the dude installing it into putting the dish on our neighbours (They were cool about it as they're family) clothes line pole as it was the only solid place we could get a signal

voipuser

I have tried connecting a Sky digibox via a Voip link (using the Sipgate service using their HandyTone-486 which provides an analog telephone port)

The Sky digibox modem attempts to dial out to the UK number 08007317929 (as I live in UK - this may be different in Ireland)

The Sky Digibox modem can dial this number in two circumstances:

a) If you go to Digibox Services menu and select New Installation

b) When Sky sends a satellite signal to your Digibox box asking for your box to dial back to Sky.

I can see that the Sky Box is dialling out OK in the outgoing call records, however I believe that all my calls to Sky over Voip are failing. This must be because the Voip service is interfering with the modem 2 way communication.

When I do a Google search using the words "Analog Modem over Voip", I find in the literature that modem signals often fail over Voip links.

Apparently this failure is more likely to happen with high speed modems, but some Voip services (at least in the US) may be more successful than others.

So from my experiments I would think that it is not possible - I would be interested if anyone else has tried.

Kotek Besar

Just to revive this thread - have there been any more success on this subject? I'm in Waterford, no Eircom line, but full VoIP set-up with an ATA and PSTN telephone etc..

Planning on getting Sky installed in a couple of weeks. Will I have issues?