# TalkTalk LLU - Tivo phone calls unanswered



## fausto (Jul 23, 2008)

Found out last night that Tivo had not had a successful update call since Nov 4th. We have recently moved from Tiscali (BT line rental) to Talktalk (Talktalk line) on Ash Green exchange. Our BroadBand changed over OK on Nov 10th. I guess the phone may have changed over earlier.

I phoned Tivo last night and they suggested adding the ,#090,, prefix to the diallling, which I did. The first Tivo test call failed but the second worked. I then forced a daily call. This did not connect :down: but again a second call connected  and then went through to "downloading". The downloading dropped out with the message "call interrupted". I forced a second daily call. It connected second time again and resumed downloading. By then I had looked at this forum and found a post by Alex who said that it would take more than a few calls to complete the download. It took 4 calls in my case. Fingers crossed that Tivo does it on its own tonight. I'm a bit nervous because of all the "failed to connect" events with the prefix. 

I see that people are assuming this is due to some part of the chain being VOIP. Until we know for sure what the cause is we'll never really be certain of the fix, will we  ? Why would manually fixing the modem speed get over VOIP more reliably than a normal line?


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## Pugwash (May 23, 2003)

Maybe using a lower speed is more fault-tolerant? Usually modems auto-degrade the speed to handle line-noise.
Time to get a network card and use the internet?


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## fausto (Jul 23, 2008)

Pugwash said:


> Maybe using a lower speed is more fault-tolerant? Usually modems auto-degrade the speed to handle line-noise.


Don't those two statements contradict each other? If the modems auto degrade then they would get slower and slower (eventually slower than 90) but then always connect and complete no matter what.



Pugwash said:


> Time to get a network card and use the internet?


 No. Not with TiVo being a dead product and so poorly supported in the UK. I'll wait for a HD Freesat PVR to become available.


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## ColinYounger (Aug 9, 2006)

If you use VOIP, the telephone call goes over the internet using TCP/IP. The IP protocol doesn't guarantee the arrival of 'packets' of information in the same order that they were sent, as the individual packets get routed across the internet individually.

In other words, the parts of the message get sent down different 'roads' depending on what's happening at that point in time,

For voice calls, this is pretty much OK - you get pops, whistles and dropouts, but you can understand the voice.

Modem communication requires the information in the call to be in a strict sequence - any 'late' or missing parts of the modem conversation will cause a break in communication. That's why you get call interrupted - a packet has gone astray and to the lowly modem, it means that someone else has entered the conversation. It can't cope and bails out.

Using a slower speed to transmit the information via the modem gives a better chance for the conversation to arrive on time and in the right order. 

But it's not guaranteed. In short, VOIP kills data calls (i.e. modem calls).


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## Pugwash (May 23, 2003)

Maybe the old saying "He who laughs last is on 2400 baud" needs to be updated. 

I suggest: "He who laughs out of turn is on VoIP"


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## fausto (Jul 23, 2008)

Update: only one call (talktalk) every few days seems to get through using #90

Does anyone have a higher success rate using a different (slower?) prefix?


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## Gilly.R (Nov 14, 2008)

fausto said:


> Found out last night that Tivo had not had a successful update call since Nov 4th. We have recently moved from Tiscali (BT line rental) to Talktalk (Talktalk line) on Ash Green exchange. Our BroadBand changed over OK on Nov 10th. I guess the phone may have changed over earlier.
> 
> I phoned Tivo last night and they suggested adding the ,#090,, prefix to the diallling, which I did. The first Tivo test call failed but the second worked. I then forced a daily call. This did not connect :down: but again a second call connected  and then went through to "downloading". The downloading dropped out with the message "call interrupted". I forced a second daily call. It connected second time again and resumed downloading. By then I had looked at this forum and found a post by Alex who said that it would take more than a few calls to complete the download. It took 4 calls in my case. Fingers crossed that Tivo does it on its own tonight. I'm a bit nervous because of all the "failed to connect" events with the prefix.
> 
> I see that people are assuming this is due to some part of the chain being VOIP. Until we know for sure what the cause is we'll never really be certain of the fix, will we  ? Why would manually fixing the modem speed get over VOIP more reliably than a normal line?


Have you checked the talktalkmembers.com site? Was your exchange (like mine) 'unbundled' about the time this started to go wrong? Maybe we are on to something at last. My epg ran out on 4/11 & I really miss it. Have you found a successful solution?
Please help if you or anyone else can.


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## fausto (Jul 23, 2008)

Gilly.R said:


> Have you checked the talktalkmembers.com site?


No. Good idea. Will do.


Gilly.R said:


> Was your exchange (like mine) 'unbundled' about the time this started to go


I don't know. I only know the date I changed from Tiscali/BT to Talktalk


Gilly.R said:


> Have you found a successful solution?


As I said in my posts, the #90 prefix, suggested by TiVo UK support, does not work every time, but it's enough to keep my EPG topped up so far.....


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## verses (Nov 6, 2002)

This site is handy for finding out if your exchange has been LLU'd
http://www.samknows.com/broadband/llu-league.php


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## Rob Randall (Nov 28, 2002)

fausto said:


> As I said in my posts, the #90 prefix, suggested by TiVo UK support, does not work every time, but it's enough to keep my EPG topped up so far.....


Have you tried the ,#056 prefix or any of the other slower speed prefixes and extra commas suggested here? Some people seem to have found they increase the call reliability.


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## fausto (Jul 23, 2008)

Rob Randall said:


> Have you tried the ,#056 prefix or any of the other slower speed prefixes and extra commas suggested here? Some people seem to have found they increase the call reliability.


No, but now that I have the info in that link, I will. Thanks.

Can someone explain the modem command syntax? I've googled "modem # commands" and come up with nothing. The only online documentation seems to be for Hayes/AT commands


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## lomno (Nov 27, 2008)

Discovered last night that since we moved our broadband provider to TALK TALK from BT our Tivo has not been able to make its daily phone call. TALK TALK have provided our calls for a couple of years but our line rental went to BT. Now it is all with TALK TALK. Have tried to make test calls but get the message FAILED TO CONNECT or FAILED TO ANSWER on the dialing option.

I have spoken to TALK TALK who basically wipe their hands from the whole thing and told me that they suggest just disconnecting Tivo! Ridiculous. There must be a way. Any ideas?


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

Many people have had success by putting the following as the prefix:

,#056,08081050005,,

There's a long thread with lots of prefixes to try here:
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=408738

Also bear in mind you can bypass phone line problems by buying a cachecard and getting updates over the internet too...


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## lomno (Nov 27, 2008)

" you can bypass phone line problems by buying a cachecard and getting updates over the internet too"

Where do I get this card from and how do I install it?


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## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

lomno said:


> Where do I get this card from and how do I install it?


www.tivocentral.co.uk www.tivoheaven.co.uk www.tivoland.com and if you're prepared to wait and deal with the their sometimes extended shipping times you can get them from www.9thtee.com
You can also fit a turbonet or terbonet card if all you want is the daily call over the internet.

If you look on ebay you may find a machine without a subscription but with the network card fitted working out cheaper than buying the card separately.


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## lomno (Nov 27, 2008)

"Many people have had success by putting the following as the prefix:

,#056,08081050005,,"

I tried this prefix. The test call went through fine but I cannot get the daily call to go through. It goes further than it did without the prefix but I still get the FAILED message. Has anyone got any other ideas? It is so frustrating!


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## DeadKenny (Nov 9, 2002)

ColinYounger said:


> But it's not guaranteed. In short, VOIP kills data calls (i.e. modem calls).


There are standards for modem over VoIP. ITU-T V.150.1 specifically.

There's also T.38 for fax over IP.

However these require implementation in VoIP systems. Few VoIP providers do this.

Although these LLU systems aren't using VoIP in the consumer sense, but is the phone provider using IP for backbone carriage of analogue voice over their private network (instead of public IP which would be compromised by Internet traffic performance).

Should be noted that BT has been moving to IP for some time in parts of their infrastructure.

Anyway, the above standards might also require hardware support in the TiVo modem. Depends on the modem. If it's a soft-modem, it might be possible to get a software fix. TiVo obviously won't deliver this.


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## Heuer (Mar 15, 2004)

I found the prefix 1280 (or 1615) suggested on another thread works fairly regularly - sometimes you get equipment busy signal which causes TiVo to abort its call - but overall a working solution. The code tells the exchange to route the call over a standard network rather than VOIP. I reckon there must be some congestion on the route at certain times caused by the number of people using it. It seems 1280 is chargeable, 1615 may be free.


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## Slick (Dec 9, 2008)

Just wanted to say a big thank you to everybody who has posted on this thread. I got the on-screen message a couple of days ago that I only had 3 days of EPG left, and in the case of some channels (BBC, ITV) I was already not getting any listings at all.

I moved over to Talk Talk quite recently, so this was my first suspect and I was soon able to find this thread. Since finding the thread I have tried several different variations - primarily ,#056,08081050005,," & ,#090,08081050005,," and ,"08081050005,,". Whilst I was able to perform a successful connection test with all of these, the actual update would always fail with 'call interrupted'. 

I was unsure when you get this message whether the data received thus far gets saved away and whether the next connection starts off again from the point of failure. I carried on trying many many times, but I never got any new listings despite the download process sometimes running for 10 minutes or more, so it doesn't look like this is the case.

Finally, after being woken by a two-year old last night, I went downstairs and gave it another go shortly before 3am with the ,#090,08081050005,," entry. After 18 minutes of download, it stated it was "hanging up", and then it started processing the data. This morning when I checked it had data up until 29th December. So it's all good again.

I'm hoping with less data to be downloaded the ,#090,08081050005,," code will work frequently enough to keep the EPG topped off. If not, I guess I'll have to pop downstairs at about 3am every 3 or so weeks and force an update. 

I guess the message for anybody who is still getting failures is to try at an 'unsociable' time when the phone lines are likely to be less busy. 

Thanks again for all the information


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