This seems to me to be a silly question but I’m no genius when it comes to technology, so what the heck: Does a cable company know if a customer is using thier service?
I ask because my parents are spending the winter in Florida, and rather than cancel their cable subscription, the cable company is allowing them to keep the connection for only a $5.00 fee during their absence. But – the company said that if the TV was turned on during their absence (by a house-sitting relative, for example) they would then charge a $50.00 penalty. So – how would they know? They can’t measure the use of a cable signal the way the power company can measure the use of its electricity, can they?
This is setting off my BS meter, but is it possible?
If it helps, my folks just have regular (non-digital) cable hooked up directly to their TV (ie, no descrambler box or anything).
I cancelled cable 6 mos.ago.The dish installer just hooked into the existing cable going into my house.Since he didn’t install a receiver in a bedroom that was formerly fed with cable,that tv * still gets cable! * Snowy but watchable,tho I have no need for it.
I don’t know about with a cable box,but without one,no way,no how.
I’ve always wondered if they know what you’re watching.
Isn’t it possible nowadays that they can ‘ping’ back what channel you’re on. They don’t use the Nielson Family anymore for ratings, do they?
I was watching the cable company do some work at a condo. It looks like one big cable goes into a block with several plugs, and then out the other side, I suppose on to the next block of plugs.
It looks like each of the several units next to the block just plug in. Does not seem as though the cable company can isolate any one plug unless perhaps there is a box at the end users place.
They can trace if a signal is on yes , some cable companies now have a option to where if the box is disconnected from the tv for a certain of time ( anywhere from 2 hours to 2 days) the signal will be blocked
On adelphia cable you get a e-5 on your box and ya have to call to “reauthoritize your converter”
They did this so you cant order a ppv or the pay channels on one addrerss and then hook it up somewhere else and everypne watches it
Thius was done becuase of a few indivisuals were ordering boxing and wrestling matches at home and taking the box to their bars and other places
I found out all this when i was helping to paint a room and we unhooked the tv and cable box for a day or 2 and we couldnt get a signal back on and I had to call the cable company
"They can trace if a signal is on yes , some cable companies now have a option to where if the box is disconnected from the tv for a certain of time ( anywhere from 2 hours to 2 days) the signal will be blocked "
Yeah, I read its like that. They activate boxes that way. But if you use rabbit ear antennae & disconnect the box & turn on your tv, they won’t know you used your tv.
A good test of whether your cable service can receive information from your local unit is what you have to do to sign up for a pay-per-view event.
If you have to call your request in using another device (say, your phone), then you probably have a one-way information stream - your cable company may able to send information to your cable unit, but it can’t receive anything back from it.
If, OTOH, you can request a pay-per-view event by pushing a few buttons on your cable remote, then your cable unit can send information back to the cable company. (How much information gets sent back and what the cable company uses it for probably varies from company to company.)
If you are a cable subscriber for in a 1-way plant area or a analog (signal) area, they CAN NOT receive info from your cable box. If you are in a 2-way plant area, or one that trnsmits via fiber/ digital signal, the answer is YES (if they really wanted).
Chances are, though,…it would be just a huge waste of time, money and effort to moniter anyone that closely.