Sky Multiscreen - sharing sky subscription with house next door?

[bigjeff80]

I own 2 houses next door to each other and I’m wondering whether I can share my sky subscription between the 2 houses. I am guessing sky wouldn’t be too happy about this and I assume they would expect each household to have its own subscription, nether the less, I would be interested to know if the following is possible….

My current Sky subscription includes one Sky HD box and one Sky + box (none HD) in another room. I am hoping to change this to 5 or 6 HD boxes (2 in my current house and 3 or 4 next door)…. The reason for so many receivers in the house next door is that I will be renting it out to students….
The questions I have are as follows…

1. Considering I will be paying the bill for all of the extra multiscreen boxes (£11.25 per month per box) - would sky allow me to share the subscription between 2 houses?
2. If, as I suspect, the answer to the above in ‘no’ could I set this up with a non-sky engineer but still using sky equipment? Ie. If I pay for the extra multiroom subscriptions but tell sky I do not need an engineer because I will set it up myself – is there any way sky could find out that the subscription in being used in 2 houses?
3. The normal sky HD multiscreen boxes do not have the facility to record. If I decide to get a normal box to begin with but then decide to upgrade to a box that can record at a later date – is there anything that needs to be done with regards to the installation or can I just disconnect the coaxial cable from the back of the old one and plug straight into the new one?
4. I already have an extra Sky HD box (with the facility to record) that a friend gave to me. Could I replace one of the standard HD multiscreen boxes with this one?
5. Could I deactivate the extra multiscreen subscriptions whenever I like? Eg. When one of the rooms next door is not occupied.

I am likely to have more questions but that’s enough for now!

 

[gibertini]

your second box(multi-room) would need a active phone line... dependent on the houses proximity you could just use a phone line extension from the main house to the second and they (sly) would be non the wiser

 

[satelliteman]

Look at it as one building. Just run the cables from the main house; a multiswitch and then run a phone line over. Can't see there being a problem. Of course, it is always advisable not to defraud your supplier of services ;)

 

[Analoguesat]

Sky subs for students? When I was at college you were lucky to have windows that closed properly! Kids these days dont know they are born ;)

1) No

2) You can set anything up yourself.

3) You will need 2 sets of coax cables to record properly / have full recording functionality

4) See 3

5) You can make changes on line although Im not sure how frequently these are permitted

 

[davemurgtroyd]

Sky used to have a limit of 4 subscription boxes on one private account and above this number you were subject to negotiation for a commercial account. Whether this is still true I do not know.

Are you really happy about committing fraud and its consequences?

 

[Huevos]

Just run the cables from the main house; a multiswitch and then run a phone line over.

Or keep all the equipment in house one, and buy a couple of good quality 5.8GHz senders with remote signalling.

 

[bim]

Buy 6 sets of encyclopedia britanica might be more use for the students

 

[PaulR]

Don't think they publish printed copies any more.

 

[satelliteman]

If funds weren't an issue, store all equip in a cupboard in main house and distribute via cat5 and matrix ;)

 

[Huevos]

If funds weren't an issue, store all equip in a cupboard in main house and distribute via cat5 and matrix ;)

Have you got a link to gear for that?

 

[satelliteman]

Not at hand, although there are plenty of cat5 matrix hdmi kits around.

 

[rolfw]

From working on systems in student rentals, I've never seen one with more than one Sky subscription, most will have just freeview, or a Sky box in a communal sitting room and then Freeview elsewhere. Many of the students don't have TVs and prefer to watch anytime TV on their laptops, very often on their parents' home sky subscriptions.

The other option would be a Sky box with feed into the terrestrial TV amp, then all can watch either Freeview, or Sky from a central point.

 

[AddyB]

In the Multiscreen contract it says that customers must give Sky access to inspect their boxes, to check that any box used to receive Multiscreen is being used at the same address!
No-one's turned up at our house yet though. Maybe they would if the extra boxes weren't connected to the home broadband?

 

[smoggy07]

In the Multiscreen contract it says that customers must give Sky access to inspect their boxes, to check that any box used to receive Multiscreen is being used at the same address!
No-one's turned up at our house yet though. Maybe they would if the extra boxes weren't connected to the home broadband?

As far as I'm aware Sky have no legal or implied right of access on your property so can't just turn up, I always thought the customer owned the equipment and all Sky retained ownership of was the card.
I know if the turned up to my house demanding to see equipment they'd be getting chased down the street.
Even TV licensing have no rights to enter your property and you'd think they'd have more power than Sky.

 

[rolfw]

Well actually they have permission if you've agreed to their contract, whether they'd ever try and enforce it is another question, they'd probably just turn off your card if they had suspicions of sharing.

 

[davemurgtroyd]

And as they actually own the viewing cards they have a legal right to have access to them - if you do not produce them at the front door or allow if in use access to view the system details on the box they are are being used in they would totally be within their legal rights to turn them off immediately