# When does Sling use internet bandwidth?



## JohnMI (Apr 2, 2002)

I'm trying to determine if/when the Sling box uses any internet bandwidth. (I currently have a 722, but I'm considering going to a Hopper w/ Sling.)

Basically, I have DishNET satellite-based internet that is severely capped, of course. I can't afford to waste bandwidth. (Last month, I accidentally downloaded a free streaming movie on my 722 -- which ate up 4GB of my bandwidth very quickly -- and I had to pay $10 extra to be able to use my internet for the rest of the month.)

In any case, I assume that for "local" slinging -- meaning if I'm in my house and using my wireless and watch something on a tablet -- that no internet bandwidth is used, correct?

What about when I watch TV from some other location (say, at my work office) using dishanywhere.com? Can I watch my DVR'ed programs there? If I can, then I assume that the Sling box would need to stream that upstream from my home, correct? In which case, I wouldn't want to do that. 

Can anyone clarify how that works? Are my assumptions correct?

Thank you!

- John...


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

There may be a limited amount of Internet bandwidth used to help your viewing device locate your Slingbox. After that, the traffic should be entirely point-to-point.

What may be of more concern is that the Slingbox periodically phones home (similar to dynamic DNS) to update Internet servers on the Slinging device's current Internet IP address.


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## JohnMI (Apr 2, 2002)

That shouldn't be too much traffic though -- so not a huge deal.

However, the more I look at this, the more it looks like playing something off-site (i.e. NOT at my home) would still be a connection from the Sling box to my device, correct? Meaning that the video would actually be streamed from the Hopper with Sling through my home internet connection, correct?

Which would make the Sling unusable for me, of course -- except when I'm actually streaming within my own home and local network.

- John...


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

jgoggan said:


> Meaning that the video would actually be streamed from the Hopper with Sling through my home internet connection, correct?
> 
> Which would make the Sling unusable for me, of course -- except when I'm actually streaming within my own home and local network.


Streaming to locations outside your home LAN will always require mass quantities of Internet bandwidth. Sling hasn't figured out how to defy the laws of physics.

If you can survive with downloading content to your media device before you set out, a Sling-enabled Hopper may be in your future.


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## JohnMI (Apr 2, 2002)

harsh said:


> Streaming to locations outside your home LAN will always require mass quantities of Internet bandwidth. Sling hasn't figured out how to defy the laws of physics.
> 
> If you can survive with downloading content to your media device before you set out, a Sling-enabled Hopper may be in your future.


I wasn't trying to defy physics -- I was instead hoping for a "smart" system that went "Oh, you want to watch Bob's Burgers from last night that is on your DVR -- let me go get that for you from our server and just play it."

In other words, my hope was more that it just granted access/authorization to a recording -- as opposed to showing that actual recording.

I realize now that was hoping for too much. 

- John...


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

jgoggan said:


> In other words, my hope was more that it just granted access/authorization to a recording -- as opposed to showing that actual recording.


Sling doesn't know what's available where. It only provides a gateway to operate and view your DVR remotely as if you had the remote control in-hand.

Have you looked into DISHanywhere.com?


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## JohnMI (Apr 2, 2002)

I have looked at Dishanywhere. For a show like Bob's Burgers -- it sends me to Fox.com to see anything except for a handful of episodes.

Fox.com then wants me to log in with my Dish account to see the most recent episode. I try to do that and it just hangs for a while and then says that they are "working on it" and to try later. 

At some point, it may indeed work for what I want for some shows. It's just a hassle to have to go to individual provider's sites to watch shows -- as opposed to DishAnywhere just being able to provide them, you know?

- John...


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

jgoggan said:


> Fox.com then wants me to log in with my Dish account to see the most recent episode. I try to do that and it just hangs for a while and then says that they are "working on it" and to try later.
> 
> At some point, it may indeed work for what I want for some shows. It's just a hassle to have to go to individual provider's sites to watch shows -- as opposed to DishAnywhere just being able to provide them, you know?


I get it. I saw the Fox bit on their watchepisodes subsite portraying authentication as being somewhat less painful that waterboarding.

Until the authentication model is radically revised, the situation will continue to suck and your ideal situation will remain a dream.

I was able to watch Ep 9 of Bob's Burgers from DISHanywhere.com without having to go through the Fox front end.


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## JohnMI (Apr 2, 2002)

Yeah, I missed an earlier episode -- but it has been a week now -- so it is available to everyone on the Fox site. So, I'll watch it soon -- since I won't have to authenticate.

Thanks for the info, in any case!

- John...


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## tampa8 (Mar 30, 2002)

Just to answer the question - The Slingbox uses no bandwidth when you are at home looking at your own boxes. Any other time it is using bandwidth. I am confused as to how it could be any other way, smart enough or not. To get to your Slingbox when you are away there is one and only one way to do it, that is through the internet. If you simply look at the guide etc.. it would be a minuscule amount of bandwidth. Once you start watching a program you are streaming. Slingbox or Roku etc. are streaming devices. A Slingbox has nothing to do with Dish Network, it streams whatever you have it hooked to. If you had Comcast or Direct TV it would work the same way.
It would be no different using a Sling adapter, no different using the Slingmedia online player.


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

tampa8,

Remember the Slingbox works differently than Sling built-in to Dish receivers or the USB Sling adapter for some Dish receivers.

In order to use the Dish DVRs with Sling or Sling adapters, you have to go through the Dish Web site or specific Dish app... you can't use the standalone Sling software.

That's where this question is coming from... because it means you can't use Sling in-home on your local network if you don't also have a broadband connection in order to use the Dish Web site or the Dish app... so while the majority of the traffic will stay on your home network when at home Slinging... there will be some internet activity. That's what the original question was about I believe.


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## chromedragon (Apr 6, 2014)

I want to use DishAnywhere ONLY at home, across my local network. I read that DishAnywhere uses the internet ONLY for controls and the movie I am viewing just streams across my local network. How can I verify this as I also am limited on internet bandwidth.

At my house, my wife records all the shows I want to the DVR. This allows me to watch a prerecorded movie on my tablet when the TVs are occupied.

I tried going to my internet's website to view my usage but a split graphical bar, top part how much I used and bottom part how much I have left is extremely unuseful.

A means to simply test my output to the internet for me to view when I watch a DVR movie, would tell me whether the controls and the entire movie is streaming aross the internet instead of just across my wifi.

I am not concerned with the control part going across the internet, just the movie itself as THAT is what would eat a person's bandwidth.


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## Jim5506 (Jun 7, 2004)

I'm pretty sure that after the link is authorized, all traffic is local.

I used to be on 1.5 down 0.5 up and my Dish Anywhere at home was very good - HD quality, but away from home, the picture was SD quality and very blocky due to my limited upload bandwidth.


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## tampa8 (Mar 30, 2002)

Stewart Vernon said:


> tampa8,
> 
> Remember the Slingbox works differently than Sling built-in to Dish receivers or the USB Sling adapter for some Dish receivers.
> 
> ...


I do know how the adapter works,I took his question to be how the sling box works. (I see he said he was considering a Hopper with a sling)
"I'm trying to determine if/when the Sling box uses any internet bandwidth."


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## Ray [email protected] Network (Dec 28, 2010)

The Internet is used when you first access dishanywhere.com or the app on your mobile device to log into the app or website. Once logged into the app or dishanywhere.com, the traffic is streamed locally on your home network and continues locally while the session is active.

I do not know if other data is sent back to our servers during the session. Thanks.



chromedragon said:


> I want to use DishAnywhere ONLY at home, across my local network. I read that DishAnywhere uses the internet ONLY for controls and the movie I am viewing just streams across my local network. How can I verify this as I also am limited on internet bandwidth.
> 
> At my house, my wife records all the shows I want to the DVR. This allows me to watch a prerecorded movie on my tablet when the TVs are occupied.
> 
> ...


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## Zulu (May 11, 2012)

Ray [email protected] Network said:


> The Internet is used when you first access dishanywhere.com or the app on your mobile device to log into the app or website. Once logged into the app or dishanywhere.com, the traffic is streamed locally on your home network and continues locally while the session is active.
> 
> I do not know if other data is sent back to our servers during the session. Thanks.


A DISH tech said _this is no longer true_ -- he said that the data is no longer beamed locally, but that it's sent back to DISH's servers.

????


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## Stewart Vernon (Jan 7, 2005)

You probably got some misinformation. There's no logical reason for the large data stream to use your Internet connection when it doesn't have to... so I seriously doubt Dish has changed anything to make it do that.


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## Zulu (May 11, 2012)

Stewart Vernon said:


> You probably got some misinformation. There's no logical reason for the large data stream to use your Internet connection when it doesn't have to... so I seriously doubt Dish has changed anything to make it do that.


That's what I thought. I've been reading reviews of the new Slingbox M1 (which is essentially a Hopper w/Sling), and a couple of reviewers mentioned using a home network if you didn't want to use up your bandwidth.

Regardless, I'm running tests to see how much actual data is used through a home network & different networks.


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## harsh (Jun 15, 2003)

Zulu said:


> A DISH tech said _this is no longer true_ -- he said that the data is no longer beamed locally, but that it's sent back to DISH's servers.


DISH can't make this happen from a practical standpoint as it would raise their bandwidth requirements by orders of magnitude for no particular reason. Your router will see that the two devices are on your home network and it will make a short cut between them.

Ray C is right.


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## Zulu (May 11, 2012)

I'm sold.

Two things happened to convince me . . .


I was able to run two tests by watching the same DVR movie twice -- one test with Hopper & iPad on the same network, the other with Hopper & iPad on different networks. The first test used very little data, the second a whole lot (over 1 GB).

The DISH tech who first told me that I'd use a lot a data (even when Hopper & iPad were on the same network), recanted.

What bugs me is that DISH support should have known the answer from the getgo. However, to be fair even Sling Media (now owned by EchoStar) has similar misleading data usage information on their web site's FAQ page.

C'est la vie.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Zulu said:


> What bugs me is that DISH support should have known the answer from the getgo. However, to be fair even Sling Media (now owned by EchoStar) has similar misleading data usage information on their web site's FAQ page.


It sounds like an error on the side of safety. The opposite error would be worse (telling people there would not be a lot of Internet data use if the devices were on different networks). When the devices are on different networks it is more likely that the customer is paying for one or both links and that payment may be metered and charged. I'd rather be told that the amount of data would be higher than it turns out to be than be surprised by an overage.

There is also truth in the statement that the devices themselves use more data when the sender and receiver are on the same network ... but that data is intranet not Internet and unless one has an odd network setup heavy data use is less of a problem.

So there is a balance ... More Internet data if on different networks but less data overall. More intranet data if on the same network but less data that is likely billable.


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## Zulu (May 11, 2012)

James Long said:


> There is also truth in the statement that the devices themselves use more data when the sender and receiver are on the same network ... but that data is intranet not Internet and unless one has an odd network setup heavy data use is less of a problem.


I didn't find that to be true when I measured the data used -- DISH Anywhere.


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