Clampdown on TV 'Dodgy Boxes'

The current model breaks the rights down over regions. The programming can be sold at different prices in different regions and in different packages/tiers. Previously, different encryption/Conditional Access Systems protected the transmissions in these rights regions and there was no effective means of rebroadcasting the programming to a wider audience. Piracy was concentrated on compromises to these systems and a device that worked on one system would not work on another. That kept piracy at a relatively low level because the cost of the equipment necessary to access the service was a barrier. The Internet and broadband changed all that.

The widespread availability of broadband meant that programming from a low subscription cost region could be rebroadcast cheaply. The equipment necessary to view these broadcasts was a lot cheaper than a typical satellite TV installation. The equipment was not specific to one service as it was in the case of satellite TV.

And now for the part that the press release recyclers in the media do not understand. People keep subscribing to the various services , including Sky, because they want certainty and a reliable service. It is only when the subscription price rises to the subscriber's financial pain threshold that that they will either downgrade or unsubscribe. Pay TV operations generally make it easy for subscribers to move up a tier and pay more. They make it very difficult to downgrade or unsubscribe. Dodgyboxes are a threat to the subscription model.The media helps propagandise them as being a lethal threat and recycles dubious claims about billions of visits to pirate TV websites. The part that the press release recyclers play is important because the rights owners and broadcasters are lobbying for stronger legislation to protect what is almost a monopoly for some progamming. For end users, dodgyboxes are a civil law issue. The broadcasters want to change that. It is a rather narrow-minded approach that does not solve he economic problem created when the same programming is available in a high subscription price region and a low subscription price region and it can be accessed easily.

Just to add re vpn, I switched to sky broadband recently and I've found it very difficult to get one service to load without a vpn enabled.

I think from reading here and elsewhere that sky broadband in both Ireland and the UK are the most aggressive of isps in trying to block access to dodgy services, which makes sense I guess.

Its dodgybox - VPN - ISP - dodgybox service.

Avoid any free ones - they are usually recognised and then blocked pretty quickly, and I've heard reports of data being stolen (hey, by "free" they gotta be getting a revenue source from somewhere, right?)

Personally I have VPN unlimited, it was great for a few years, but lately I've found more and more services are recognising that I'm running a VPN using it, for example Netflix wouldn't display prices in Turkish Lira, or BBC iPlayer kept refusing to play content as it recognises you're going through a VPN.

I have premium Nord VPN also, it seems rock solid seldom if ever have issues.

Proton VPN, I also paid for it for a few months to try it out , expensive compared to Nord , but also seemed rock solid.

.hope this helps.

I don't use VPNs and so could not advise on the choice of VPN service. My experience with VPNs comes from dealing with the at a website level and mapping the IP addresses of websites.

So how do you connect to the VPN without connecting to your ISP first then?

I don't know the technical ins and outs of it but I do know anytime I've been blocked all I have is the spinning wheel. Turn on the VPN and it works perfectly again.

Anytime I've experienced buffering the VPN has had no effect. That's my experience anyhow

The vpn is established say on the fire stick. this encrypted tunnel runs alongside your ISP connection which is why you can have a fire stick running on the vpn and not your computer.

it's fairly simple I'm not sure why everyone is complicating it.

if you don't have an ISP connection your not getting anything.

the provider sees the VPN IP.

Do you understand what a VPN service does?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VPN_service

I think a lot of the confusion about how the VPN works is around what we want the VPN to do.

Who do you want to lie to?

Do you want to lie to a website i.e. Netflix to tell them you are connecting to them from a different place than the place you are actually in ?

Or do you want to lie to your ISP about where you are going i.e to your dodgy box service ?

They are two very different things.

Reason I spend a few extra euro to stay with EirBB, never seen a "block" in 5+ years now. Anytime I bring my stick to a house that has Sky Broadband, I need VPN on 24/7. I know it's simple to turn on and all that, but it's the ease of when others are using it, hard enough explain when the app updates, let alone turning on a VPN.

Your the expert on all things, do you not know?

I'll give you a hint try the tracert command from a PC with your VPN both on and off and see where they go.

The vpn is so your isp doesnt block the connection to an unknown ip address which would be the iptv server streaming the match.

When i was using Three i would get a failed connection to iptv sports stream. Then i turn on vpn and reload tivimate and the game is on (no pun intended).

As far as vpns I find Proton excellent. Rarely stutters. I was using torguard, a smaller company , cheaper but great as a vpn but for high bitrate fhd/uhd iptv, can jitter. Proton is very good but more expensive. A lot of people say nord , ive used nord before, but not for iptv. So i cant comment on sport but it was a solid vpn. Often cheaper than proton. I dont thibk nord has port forwarding, so i went to proton. But thats not needed for streaming. Look out for discounts to vpn subs theres usually many.

I did it on my phone with a VPN on and off, but I went to 8.8.8.8 rather than my illegal streaming URL.

Anyway that doesn't matter.

Without VPN you could see the hops to 8.8.8.8

With VPN it just returned *** until it reached the max 30 hops.

But 8.8.8.8 was pinagable.

So what I get from that is that a packet can reach it's destination but the device has no idea how it got there.