TiVo and DirecTV in a Cellular-Only Household?

Balthisar asks: "Like so many others, my wife and I have recently made the move to pure mobile telephone use, and have disconnected the landline permanently. Today, I turned on the TiVo and received a stern warning that only three days of the program guide remained! I screwed up. Anyone have a good emergency way of refreshing the program guide while I wait for my TiVo networking card to come in? An additional concern is DirecTV: I never use Pay Per View, but it's not connected, either. Any horror stories about not having your DirecTV connected to a phone line? If you don't have any advice, at least take this as a cautionary tale to make a good checklist before taking the leap of eliminating your terrestrial line!" This topic was handled in a previous article over 2 years ago. What suggestions do you have for others, that find themselves in this position?

Comments

You don't need a network card

[Yeechang Lee]

I presume that you have a Series 1 TiVo given the 9thtee card. So do I, but since I don't need anything more than daily updates, I use a serial cable to hook mine up to my Linux box (Windows boxes work too). Not bad for $5.

Much bigger problem

[alazar]

I guess you haven't tried to get any credit (cards or otherwise) since you went cellular only. A friend just went through this problem. The "great" USA Patriot Act has made it illegal for companies issuing credit to do so for anyone who does not have a landline telephone number.

That said - I cannot find it explicitly in the act , after a quick review. (EPIC.org). But it may be that I missed it, or that the details are in some resulting regulation, or that that is the interpretation of the credit issuer.

My buddy was trying to buy furniture, and got turned down even tho he has an excellent credit record. After doing the digging the credit issuer told him that they could not issue because he gave them only a mobile phone number.

I'd love to hear about your experience should you apply for new credit.