# Hopper Has Built-In WiFi? Yes, No?



## khearrean

I haven't seen this covered although I'm sure it is somewhere. I certainly hope I haven't made a mistake by ordering a Hopper & Joey upgrade upgrade today to be installed this Wednesday.
Here's my question; in order to take advantage of all features of the Hopper, I am now reading that it needs access to the internet. Now I realize there is no wireless compatibility from the Hopper to the Joey, but is there built-in WiFi in the Hopper that will allow wireless access to the internet? If not, wouldn't that mean that the Hopper has to be installed near the modem/router & be hard-wired? In my case, that's next to impossible because I don't plan on having SAT in the room where my computer & modem/router is located. So if there is no WiFi capability in the Hopper & a hard wire to my router would be required, I would not be able to utilize all the features of the Hopper, correct?

Edit: And I just read where the Sling does have built-in wifi capability. So does that solve my problem then?

Another edit: I just called & spoke with Dish Tech Support & he told me I would need a "Power Line Broadband Connector" which, according to him, allows me to get connectivity wirelessly because it uses the household current to see my router; so he is shipping it to me 2nd day so it will be here for the installer. Can anyone confirm this will work for what I need? I had read that the Sling itself had wifi capability, but he said that was not correct.

Ken


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## khearrean

khearrean said:


> I haven't seen this covered although I'm sure it is somewhere. I certainly hope I haven't made a mistake by ordering a Hopper & Joey upgrade upgrade today to be installed this Wednesday.
> Here's my question; in order to take advantage of all features of the Hopper, I am now reading that it needs access to the internet. Now I realize there is no wireless compatibility from the Hopper to the Joey, but is there built-in WiFi in the Hopper that will allow wireless access to the internet? If not, wouldn't that mean that the Hopper has to be installed near the modem/router & be hard-wired? In my case, that's next to impossible because I don't plan on having SAT in the room where my computer & modem/router is located. So if there is no WiFi capability in the Hopper & a hard wire to my router would be required, I would not be able to utilize all the features of the Hopper, correct?
> 
> Edit: I should add that I am getting the Sling Adapter as the CSR told me it now automatically comes with the Hopper. And I just read where the Sling does have built-in wifi capability. So does that solve my problem then?
> 
> Another edit: I just called & spoke with Dish Tech Support & he told me I would need a "Power Line Broadband Connector" which, according to him, allows me to get connectivity wirelessly because it uses the household current to see my router; so he is shipping it to me 2nd day so it will be here for the installer. Can anyone confirm this will work for what I need? I had read that the Sling Adapter itself had wifi capability, but he said that was not correct.
> 
> Ken


Well, I finally got my answer after having to call Dish Tech Support twice & getting two different answers. On the 3rd try, they sent me up to Loyalty Support & I got (hopefully) the correct answer. The Dish Hopper *with Sling*, which (according to him) is all they send out now for new Hopper installs, does have built-in WiFi which will see my router regardless of where they install the Hopper. What I can't understand is why all the Dish Techs don't have the same & correct info, but at least my persistence paid off. So in case anyone else wanted to know this info, hopefully this is the correct scoop.

Ken


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## P Smith

I'm highly doubt in correctiness of the answer (anyone has FCC link to the H2 model ?); I will bet you will have H2 with "Power Line Broadband Connector" installed next to your swich/router/etc
all ViP/XiP boxes has internal "Power Line Broadband" chip [Intellion]


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## harsh

The Hopper w/Sling includes Wi-fi capability. The original Hopper does not.

In this day and age of streaming media, Internet multi-player gaming and TV-based Skype flying around, I would recommend making provisions for wired Ethernet at each TV location.


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## P Smith

What WiFi standards it's supporting ?


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## FarmerBob

P Smith said:


> What WiFi standards it's supporting ?


That's what I am wondering? I'm running 802.11n/ac with a g guest network. And since they have Broadcom chips, do they have AC capability? Also I saw that you can use both top and bottom inputs for Internet from two different sources. I guess it's if you have DISHNet and a terrestrial carrier. Right now is seems that the main Hopper is using both hardwire and WiFi and the secondary one is using MoCA and WiFi. There are three IP addresses assigned to DISH gear. Looks like they are really headed to some fancy networking features.


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## P Smith

if someone could post good pictures of internals the H2 with WiFi chip ... why they keep info about its capability as a top secret ?


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## harsh

P Smith said:


> why they keep info about its capability as a top secret ?


Because they may be reserving some feature for a wireless Joey?


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## 3HaloODST

The Hopper w/Sling has an internal abgn WiFi chip.

I have a link to the FCC page about the HwS but right now due to the gov't shutdown it's offline "until further notice."



> The ID:058 is a satellite set-top box incorporating Sling place shifting technology designed to operate as a server in the whole home DVR system. The ID:058 has a RF4CE 2.4GHz Synkro solution to interface to a remote control , a Bluetooth Class 2 transceiver for supported accessories, and an 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi transceiver for connection to the customer's internet wirelessly. The RF4CE radio is located on the main board and uses a detachable antenna located on the back panel of the set-top box. The Bluetooth transceiver is on a separate PCB that is located within the front panel plastics. The Bluetooth transceiver uses a printed antenna. The 802.11a/b/g/n transceiver is located on the same PCB as the Bluetooth transceiver. The 802.11a/b/g/n transceiver uses two antennas that are attached via U.FL connectors and two different lengths of mini coax cable. These antennas are located within the front bezel assembly.
> Removal of the Bluetooth and 802.11a/b/g/n transceivers does not alter the RF characteristics of the
> RF4CE transceiver. The ID:058 provides HDMI, Composite and Component A/V outputs as well as
> Ethernet, USB and eSATA. For the purposes of this specific test report, the product supports the following data rates in the
> 5150-5250MHz band:
> IEEE 802.11a: 6, 9, 12, 18, 24, 36, 48, 54Mbps
> IEEE 802.11n: MCS0, MCS1, MCS2, MCS3, MCS4, MCS5, MCS6, MCS7
> In 802.11n HT20 and 802.11n HT40 modes, the nominal bandwidth is 20MHz and 40MHz respectively.


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## FarmerBob

Mine showed all 4 of my WiFi networks and jumped onto my 802.11n network. Which if I remember the Ethernet is only 10/100, which makes N a waste. But it also looks like if hooked up to both, WiFi and Ethernet, it will use both. And I was told that you can use both Ethernet jack as inputs from two different ISP sources. Not sure how two from the same source would do? Just might have to try it. My HwS system is taking 4 IPA's for three devices, so . . . Also about people in the chain knowing things . . . my installer who was supposedly a trainer also did not know if "bridging" was available or active yet as he was touting the glory of it. The manager that stopped by joined the conversation and told him that it was active, and I knew from posts here, and had been for a long time. What I have seen about the dissemination of information in the DISH family, is haphazard.

*Update*:
I tried plugging in a second Ethernet cable to my main HwS and the activity lights on the ports flashed synchronously. No individual activity there. And it didn't take anymore IP addresses than the 3-4 IPA's it takes now. Went to the Networking Control area and the way it operates it's hard to tell what's going on. One moment things are OK, then the next not, then OK, then not . . . Everything shows it has an IPA, but not other connectivity. It also showed that the Wireless and the wired are sharing a MAC address, then the TOP Jack was working and seen, then not and not available for stats. I have noticed that it's real squirrely about IPA's too. Constantly jumping around and dropping, then picking up. I tried to give it reserved addresses as per their MAC addresses and it's all over the place. Either the HwS's don't get how this is suppose to work or just wants to do its own thing. The latter is no surprise in DISH's case. I'll have to watch network traffic and see if it starts causing problems and interfering with my other devices. If anyone has a white paper on DISH's networking scheme, I'd like to get my hands on it.

*Furthermore:*
Upon further observation now that I have both HwS hard wired and WiFi'd, which are getting good signal on the 5G wavelength and I can't find a way to turn it off in the Hoppers. I look at what devices are attached to my router and it shows 3 wired and 2 WiFi as it should. But then things change and are all over the place in manner that I have never seen before. Single units are taking multiple IPA's under the same MAC address. And grabbing one, dropping another, picking back up, dropping, even though I have reserved addresses for them they are grabbing IPA's outside the res range. WTF?! It should be as is in the "real" world, One IPA per Unit per Connection per MAC Address. AND I have noticed while playing around I can not find a way to turn off WiFi once set up. Maybe the my tech that is replacing the LNB tomorrow will know? To tell you the truth I am not surprised that things are "wonky". It seems to be the DISH mantra. So to say the least, yes, there is WiFi and it covers the full spectrum including the 5G band and once connected . . .


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## harsh

Remember that Wi-fi devices must share the signal with all the other Wi-fi devices while most wired devices connected to switches do NOT have to share a path. It is pretty rare when wireless is faster than wired just as it is relatively rare when MoCA is faster than wired; even if their raw data rates are higher.

MoCA and Wi-fi are unidirectional and only handle one conversation (per band in the case of multiband) at any one instant.


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## hdcl

I have a 2 Hopper, 3 Joey setup. Only one of my Hoppers is actually connected to the internet via Ethernet. Once you do that, you can effectively "bridge" the connection and all of the other devices use the single Ethernet connection over MoCA. When I my setup was first installed, the DISH tech actually brought a WiFi dongle that he setup but I removed it and just use Ethernet. Wifi is fine for normal stuff streaming on demand content live is problematic across 5 devices. WiFi works if you are caching for later viewing.


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## brucegrr

Remember that Wi-fi devices must share the signal with all the other Wi-fi devices while most wired devices connected to switches do NOT have to share a path. It is pretty rare when wireless is faster than wired just as it is relatively rare when MoCA is faster than wired; even if their raw data rates are higher.

MoCA and Wi-fi are unidirectional and only handle one conversation (per band in the case of multiband) at any one instant.


I retrofitted our house, which was built in 1871, with wired network jacks. I also use a wireless router and several wireless access points to handle wireless access. With my wife and I, along with 3 adult children, 2 of which are in college,using the internet, our home network is busy day and night. Things would come to a standstill if everything was wireless. Our Dish equipment, AV equipment, and desktop computer is wired. Everything else is wireless. Usually, the wireless speeds are 25-40% less than the wired speeds, depending on how many people are using the network. I always suggest people use wired connections if at all possible.


Sent from my iPad using DBSTalk


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## some guy

You can't turn the wifi off. Just enter the wrong password to your network and it should stop trying to connect via wifi.


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## FarmerBob

some guy said:


> You can't turn the wifi off. Just enter the wrong password to your network and it should stop trying to connect via wifi.


Yup. I figured that. What with this atrocious GUI I'm not surprised there'd not be an off button. I have plenty of bandwidth and at the moment it seems not to be interfering with anything. Although it's sucked up 7 IPA's for two Hoppers and a Joey. One Hopper has two hardwired and one WiFi connections. I'm learning to spot these guys from their MAC addresses. Plus Netgear has a the Genie gizmo that tells you via a moving carousel of pictures who's there or not. The biggest problem is that they keep coming and going. Not grabbing an address and staying there with it. And I have reserved addresses for everything and they want drop and grab outside the range.

Just something to bide my time while I wait for the installer to come back and replace one of the two things that we touched but did not replace when we got the Hoppers, the LNB's. Lost 110 completely on Saturday. Just a Hoppin' fun ol' time.


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