I actually wrote to the MovieBeam people about the phone line. Here's my letter to them and their response.
My Letter -------- Question: You have a new toy. This new toy will be first bought by early adopters, those techie of kind of people who first bought Tivo and DirecTV and digital cable and whatever else. These same people are also the people who have given up their landline and just have a cellphone because why pay for that extra line you never need? They do have a cable modem for Internet, but no landline.
So why make your device require a landline? Why not put an RJ45 jack in and use DHCP and just connect over the Internet? Tivo's forums are full of people who have had to manually modify their boxes to use the Internet instead of a landline.
I'd love to get your product, but since the only two people in my house have cell phones and we have no landline, we can't use your product. If it had WiFi or RJ-45, no problem... but I'm not going to get a landline installed and pay another 26 bucks a month just to have it available for a once-a-month phone call from your product.
-----
Their Response ------------- Your specific question was as follows:
Why does it require a phone line and not any other forms of dialing in?
The MovieBeam player was designed to hookup to your landline only. During the setup process, the player must call out in order to initialize your account. Thereafter, it connects to MovieBeam by phone in order to keep your account current. If you leave your player connected to a phone line at all times, you will not have to bother with it -- it will call in as necessary without interrupting your telephone service or your movie-viewing. At the very least, your player must connect with MovieBeam by phone at least once every 2 weeks or $28 of movie-viewing charges, whichever comes first. You do not have to give us any landline number; you can have your player dial in anywhere. I hope this information has helped you. If you'd like we can add you to a contact list to keep you updated on the latest developments.
You will notice that the player has a variety of hookups that are not currently in use but are there for when the software has been developed; Ethernet is one of these connections.
Thank you again for taking time to let us know how you feel about MovieBeam. We welcome further comments and hope that you will always feel free to contact us, either by email -- as you've done -- or by calling us at 1-866-865-1500.
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I actually wrote to the MovieBeam people about the phone line. Here's my letter to them and their response.
My Letter
--------
Question: You have a new toy. This new toy will be first bought by early
adopters, those techie of kind of people who first bought Tivo and
DirecTV and digital cable and whatever else. These same people are also
the people who have given up their landline and just have a cellphone
because why pay for that extra line you never need? They do have a cable
modem for Internet, but no landline.
So why make your device require a landline? Why not put an RJ45 jack in
and use DHCP and just connect over the Internet? Tivo's forums are full
of people who have had to manually modify their boxes to use the
Internet instead of a landline.
I'd love to get your product, but since the only two people in my house
have cell phones and we have no landline, we can't use your product. If
it had WiFi or RJ-45, no problem... but I'm not going to get a landline
installed and pay another 26 bucks a month just to have it available for
a once-a-month phone call from your product.
-----
Their Response
-------------
Your specific question was as follows:
Why does it require a phone line and not any other forms of dialing in?
The MovieBeam player was designed to hookup to your landline only.
During the setup process, the player must call out in order to
initialize your account. Thereafter, it connects to MovieBeam by phone
in order to keep your account current. If you leave your player
connected to a phone line at all times, you will not have to bother with
it -- it will call in as necessary without interrupting your telephone
service or your movie-viewing. At the very least, your player must
connect with MovieBeam by phone at least once every 2 weeks or $28 of
movie-viewing charges, whichever comes first. You do not have to give us
any landline number; you can have your player dial in anywhere. I hope
this information has helped you. If you'd like we can add you to a
contact list to keep you updated on the latest developments.
You will notice that the player has a variety of hookups that are not
currently in use but are there for when the software has been developed;
Ethernet is one of these connections.
Thank you again for taking time to let us know how you feel about
MovieBeam. We welcome further comments and hope that you will always
feel free to contact us, either by email -- as you've done -- or by
calling us at 1-866-865-1500.