DirecTV is in the dark ages (and Vonage isn’t)

There is just no excuse for DirecTV’s new, $1,000 satellite receiver and Tivo recorder to require a telephone line. An old-fashioned telephone line. I understand that it can’t use the satellite dish to transmit information back to DirecTV since the dish is receive-only, but why not a local network?

The problem is, we use Voice Over IP now. Unfortunately, typical VOIP lines don’t work well with modems — and why the heck would you need a modem if you have broadband?

The whole problem would largely go away if this $1,000 HR10-250 box would allow me to adjust the modem settings but, in a horrible move on DirecTV’s part they buried the modem under idiot-proof end-user screens. You can’t fiddle with it’s settings. In part this is because the HR10-250’s modem no longer honors typical prefix codes, such as “,#019” — in older boxes this would downgrade the modem to 19,200 baud — the threshold at which modems and VOIP play nicely together. Alas, the HR10-250 insists on running at full speed — and as a result, fails to work over VOIP about 95% of the time.

Wake up DirecTV, time to get with the program. There are a lot of unhappy customers out there (just do a google search). Put those USB ports on the back of the HR10-250 to use and let us use our local area networks. (I could go on to ask why the box doesn’t have an Ethernet port but that’s a diatribe for another day).