When Sky finally terminates signal?

paultf

Toke the plunge and cancelled Sky at last. I am just wondering what happens when Sky terminate the signal later on this month?

The reason I am asking is I have disconnected the boxes from the telephone line. I have replaced the Sky box downstairs with a freesat box and the Sky box upstairs is now using a FTV card.

Should I ring Sky and tell them to terminate the signal now or should I leave it as is? Does it make a difference?

Johnny Johnson

paultf wrote: »

Toke the plunge and cancelled Sky at last. I am just wondering what happens when Sky terminate the signal later on this month?

The reason I am asking is I have disconnected the boxes from the telephone line. I have replaced the Sky box downstairs with a freesat box and the Sky box upstairs is now using a FTV card.

Should I ring Sky and tell them to terminate the signal now or should I leave it as is? Does it make a difference?

They will deactivate your viewing card. You should have been told when this will happen. Your signal will not be turned off.

paultf

Johnny Johnson wrote: »

They will deactivate your viewing card. You should have been told when this will happen. Your signal will not be turned off.

OK.

I suppose one of the reasons why I am asking is: what would happen if Sky decided to check if my 2 Sky boxes were still connected to the telephone line before my a/c is terminated fully? Could they try to charge 2 full subs?

Or could there be other problems on the day they close my a/c but find the Sky boxes aren't being used and they don't have the right viewing cards?

Should I ring up Sky that I am not using the Sky boxes at all even though there is a couple of weeks to go?

PogMoThoin

The Sky Boxes are yours, you can do with them as you please when your contract is terminated. Why would you need to contact them?

paultf

PogMoThoin wrote: »

The Sky Boxes are yours, you can do with them as you please when your contract is terminated. Why would you need to contact them?

I know about owning the Sky boxes. My contract doesn't end till the end of the month but I am not using my Sky subscription. I am using 1 freesat box + 1 Sky box with FTV instead.

I was wondering about contacting Sky because:

(1) I didn't want them to do a check next week, tell me that my Sky boxes aren't connected, and charge me extra as my a/c hasn't fully terminated yet. (I have/had multiroom. I thought Sky sometimes do checks to stop people using a MR box at a different location.)

(2) I was wondering also about what happens on the final day they deactivate my viewing card and close my a/c. Does it make any difference that the Sky boxes and viewing cards aren't connected? (I'm not sure if this Q is valid at all, just thought I'd ask.)

paultf

duplicate post - please delete

p.oconnor

Johnny Johnson wrote: »

They will deactivate your viewing card. You should have been told when this will happen. Your signal will not be turned off.

I always wondered how exactly they send a signal down to the exact box from the satellite where millions of other people are using the service and even people using the same lnb for other services like freesat, the technology is crazy.

PogMoThoin

paultf wrote: »

I know about owning the Sky boxes. My contract doesn't end till the end of the month but I am not using my Sky subscription. I am using 1 freesat box + 1 Sky box with FTV instead.

I was wondering about contacting Sky because:

(1) I didn't want them to do a check next week, tell me that my Sky boxes aren't connected, and charge me extra as my a/c hasn't fully terminated yet. (I have/had multiroom. I thought Sky sometimes do checks to stop people using a MR box at a different location.)

(2) I was wondering also about what happens on the final day they deactivate my viewing card and close my a/c. Does it make any difference that the Sky boxes and viewing cards aren't connected? (I'm not sure if this Q is valid at all, just thought I'd ask.)

1, they usually contact you and give a warning about your box not being connected to the phone line. You have cancelled, how can they charge you, you pay in advance. Contact your bank and cancel the direct debit.

2, it does not matter, they do not send any signal to de-activate the card, they just disable it their side.

zg3409

If you have already cancelled, no need to worry, no need to do anything. Personally I would contact the bank and confirm/ask the direct debit is stopped just in case they accidentally charge you by accident.

There is no need to leave the box on or off or connected to a phone line. They do not care. The only issue is if you go to sell the box before the month is up. In some cases they will not allow a box to be switched over if it is still in contract. So don't sell it until the time is up.

They will probably ring you offering deals such as free movies and send you spam mailings unless you tell them to stop.

Redshift

p.oconnor wrote: »

I always wondered how exactly they send a signal down to the exact box from the satellite where millions of other people are using the service and even people using the same lnb for other services like freesat, the technology is crazy.

The short version is that there is a constant data stream sent out by sky over the satellite feed which contain what are called EMMs (entitlement management messages) your sky box monitors the EMM stream and when it sees one addressed to your card number it passes the message to your card which then decrypts it using a secret key and carries out the instructions contained in the EMM. which can be anything from adding and removing packages, to deactivating the card entirely.

When channels are added to your card they contain an expiry date which is usually no more than six weeks away, when you have an active subscription sky update the expiry date with an EMM every couple of weeks to keep the channels active. This is why removing your card before sky send the kill signal will not work because in addition to the kill signal they stop sending signals to update the expiry date of your channels so even if the card never gets the kill signal once the expiry passes the channel will stop working anyway.