Getting Sky Hd without Bt Phone Line?

[dessimpson]

I had the sky engineer in today to install HD and he told my wife I needed to have a phone line (which I don't have or want) or I'd have to pay the £25 fee.
I have had sky / sky+ for nearly 10 years and have not had a phone line. Why the sudden insistence on one now?
I told them to cancel the order and am now looking at freesat or aVirgin VBox (I've got Virgin broadband already).

[GeoffW]

If you already have Sky+ you could buy a HD box on ebay, then call up sky to pair the new box with your card, they go for £80 to £100.

As other posters have said, you need the phone line as part of the Skys interactive contract agreement. I think it's used to send viewing trend info when it phones home, and for VoD, but as you found it works fine without it.

[dessimpson]

That's what I'm planning to do and if it breaks I've always got my old sky+ box to fall back on.
The virgin box is just too slow and the remote is awful!!

[Paul]

You were getting the HD box at a subsidised price which is why you either need it on the telephone line for 12 months or to pay the £25 up front. It's all in the terms and conditions on Sky.com

[chinablue]

I had Sky fitted Friday 5/3/10. Installation engineer isisted he connect to telephone line, I was reluctant and he contacted Sky who informed that it was part of the contract that the line be installed, alternatively they would charge £25 and activate the line via the satelite. He activated the box via his PDA (Note he was NOT a Sky employee but a freelance engineer). Hope that answers your question.
I did ask the engineer to run line to location of proposed new BT connection for Sky Talk. He wouldn't do this as it meant running cable inside AND outside the house which required two types of cable (internal & external).
Can I run a cable to a phone connection box inside the house and run a seperate external cable out side the house to the upstairs room where the router is?

[Paul]

The router should be as close to the telephone socket as possible, you do not want a long lead going from the main tel socket to your router or it will impact your speeds badly.

[chinablue]

Thanks Paul,
I want the new BT connection upstairs next to the router, hence the reason for taking the lead from the Sky HD box from the back of the house internally (approx. 9m) connecting to a box so that I can switch to an external cable take up on the outside of the house and re-enter local to the new BT box yet to be fitted.
Do I need to change lead types? I believe that the external cale outer coating is toxic and only 1m length allowed indoors.
Thanks again Paul.