Can people share a satellite account?
 

Forgive my ignorance as I've never had satellite tv and have barely even
touched the controls.

I presume if you have service to more than one tv you have a box by each
both fed from the dish & LNB via a cable splitter.

So can someone take one of their boxes to another location and hook it to
another dish/LNB and still be part of the original service without a 2nd
subscription?

Again, I am showing my ignorance but these things are downlinks only,
right? What do they do about pay per view?

--

Also, as a separate but related matter, with cable tv moving towards almost
all channels being scrambled and mandatory use of a converter box as
gatekeeper what happens if you take such a box (already activated) to
another location on the same cable system. I'm going to guess if you take
it next door the system has no clue. But I don't know how widely spread
each location is getting exactly the same signal so maybe a block away it
works but across town it would be on a different node or something and not
work?

Yes, I know it sounds like I'm planning to cheat in some way but I'm really
more just curious. Guess I'm wondering why more people don't share
subscriptions if it's technically feasible.

Can people share a satellite account?
 

In article ,
Chet Kincaid wrote:

Forgive my ignorance as I've never had satellite tv and have barely even
touched the controls.

I presume if you have service to more than one tv you have a box by each
both fed from the dish & LNB via a cable splitter.

It's technically a "multiswitch", not just a passive splitter. You
usually need to have a dual-LNB dish in order to do this at all,
because the two boxes may need to be receiving signals which are not
only on different frequencies, but which are on opposite polarizations
(and a single LNB can only receive one polarization at a time).

Many of the newer dishes have multiple LNBs built in, and a "single
cable" frequency stacking arrangement which only requires running one
cable from the dish to the switch ("splitter").

So can someone take one of their boxes to another location and hook it to
another dish/LNB and still be part of the original service without a 2nd
subscription?

Again, I am showing my ignorance but these things are downlinks only,
right? What do they do about pay per view?

Well, there's technical "can" (will it work) and business / legal /
contractual "can" (is it permitted / authorized?)

To the latter point first: with most satellite companies, this is
definitely not allowed by the contract. The account/licensing is for
a "single household" usage only, and may not be shared with another
household. In some cases I think they even may not allow "second home"
sharing (e.g. primary home and a vacation home/cabin) on the same
account, although I'm not all that sure of this... it may vary by the
company. Breaking this rule is technically a form of "theft of
services", and those who are caught at it can be faced with civil
suits for damages and perhaps even face criminal charges (the latter
is not common but it has happened).

Now, on a technical level... yes, this often will work, and a lot of
people bend/break the rules by "lending" one of their secondary units
to a friend or relative. During normal operation, the satellite boxes
are downlink-only and don't have any sort of back-channel to the
satellite provider... and so the provider may not be aware that one of
the boxes has been moved.

Some satellite receivers insist on "calling home" periodically, either
via phone line (typically a toll-free "800" number) or via the home's
broadband Internet connection. If a satellite provider detects two
receivers on a single account, "phoning home" from phone numbers
at different locations, they may decide that this is a possible
violation of the account contract. In this case they might deactivate
one or more of the receivers, or insist on some sort of physical
verification process to demonstrate that the receivers are in fact in
the same home.

For pay-per-view, the satellite provider may require that the receiver
be hooked up to a phone line (for ordering and for payment
authorization), which would provide the phoning-location validation I
just described. In other cases, PPV can be ordered and paid for by
phone or Internet, and the authorization for it sent via the
satellite... in which case a phone line connection may not be required.

--
Dave Platt AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page: http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

Can people share a satellite account?
 

On Jan 20, 11:43*am, Chet Kincaid wrote:
Forgive my ignorance as I've never had satellite tv and have barely even
touched the controls.

I presume if you have service to more than one tv you have a box by each
both fed from the dish & LNB via a cable splitter.

So can someone take one of their boxes to another location and hook it to
another dish/LNB and still be part of the original service without a 2nd
subscription?

Again, I am showing my ignorance but these things are downlinks only,
right? *What do they do about pay per view?

--

Also, as a separate but related matter, with cable tv moving towards almost
all channels being scrambled and mandatory use of a converter box as
gatekeeper what happens if you take such a box (already activated) to
another location on the same cable system. *I'm going to guess if you take
it next door the system has no clue. *But I don't know how widely spread
each location is getting exactly the same signal so maybe a block away it
works but across town it would be on a different node or something and not
work?

Yes, I know it sounds like I'm planning to cheat in some way but I'm really
more just curious. *Guess I'm wondering why more people don't share
subscriptions if it's technically feasible.

AFAIK you can't share the satellite unless they would be in the same
building. You could (you didn't hear it from me) share it with a next
door neighbor.
You can take your receiver (or smartcard) with you to a cottage or
such. (at least you could in the past).
I know of people (same family) their homes are a few hundred feet
apart. They have the dual Dish receiver and a boosted signal for their
second remote (UHF signal). No added cost for the 2nd house.

Can people share a satellite account?
 

On 20 ene, 18:43, Chet Kincaid wrote:
I presume if you have service to more than one tv you have a box by each
both fed from the dish & LNB via a cable splitter.

Since the subscription is usually attached to a card you must insert
in the box, you can only watch one at a time so you could have
multiple boxes and multiple TVs but since you have just one active
card you would have to take the card with you to the one you want to
watch. This of course assumes the card and box used by that particular
provider are some standard so you can buy third party boxes compatible
with the subscription.
Another common setup is to send the output video from the box to other
TVs in a home, either modulated in RF through a coaxial cable or by
wireless video transmitters. As long as all the TVs are yours this
should not be illegal.

So can someone take one of their boxes to another location and hook it to
another dish/LNB and still be part of the original service without a 2nd
subscription?

Yes, you can connect your converter box to any dish pointed to the
right satellite and it will work and they will not know unless you
connect the box to a phone line and the box calls by phone so they
could see its is calling from another number. I don't know if any
control exists about the number the call originates from.

Can people share a satellite account?
 

Jeroni Paul wrote:
Since the subscription is usually attached to a card you must insert
in the box, you can only watch one at a time so you could have
multiple boxes and multiple TVs but since you have just one active
card you would have to take the card with you to the one you want to
watch. This of course assumes the card and box used by that particular
provider are some standard so you can buy third party boxes compatible
with the subscription.

Huh? One at a time? Are you saying one can't call up Dish or Direct and
say I have 2 TV's and I want service for both? I assume they then sell or
rent you (whatever the deal is) two boxes and a dish and equipment suitable
to drive both boxes. I further presume that one subscription for two TV's,
while probably more costly than a single TV, would still be a lot less than
two separate subscriptions.

Yes, you can connect your converter box to any dish pointed to the
right satellite and it will work and they will not know unless you
connect the box to a phone line and the box calls by phone so they
could see its is calling from another number. I don't know if any
control exists about the number the call originates from.

Is that how pay per view works, it has to call in?

Can people share a satellite account?
 

Chet Kincaid wrote:

Huh? One at a time? Are you saying one can't call up Dish or Direct and
say I have 2 TV's and I want service for both? I assume they then sell or
rent you (whatever the deal is) two boxes and a dish and equipment suitable
to drive both boxes. I further presume that one subscription for two TV's,
while probably more costly than a single TV, would still be a lot less than
two separate subscriptions.


They also install the equiment.


--
You can't fix stupid. You can't even put a band-aid on it, because it's
Teflon coated.