1st property question - communal dish

Belloni · 23 Sep 2015 at 19:27

In the middle of purchasing a flat with the missus and it comes with a communal dish. How does things like sky and Internet work when it comes to paying and changing provider? Would I have to use their provider?

iraiguana · 23 Sep 2015 at 20:01

Sky using an encrypted signal, so you pay for a box and card to decode it on a flat by flat basis.

You should have a separate phone line installed, in which case it is just like any other phone.

TripleT · 23 Sep 2015 at 22:20

Yer you can't change provider. And its normally done through an agent rather than sky directly so you can't use their offers. That was my experience anyway.

john_s · 24 Sep 2015 at 08:35

The previous house I lived in had a communal Sky dish. Subscription was with Sky as usual and we did get the joining offer. Box was supplied and installed by Sky, who just plugged it into the socket provided. Biggest PITA was that there sockets were only single feed, so you couldn't watch one channel and record something different.

It was a pain when it broke though, as it needed a contractor to come in and fix it and everyone was without TV until it was fixed.

The phone was just a normal phone line, so you could choose your provider as you liked.

Yaayuh! · 24 Sep 2015 at 09:01

We owned a flat with a communal dish, everything was as normal, we just shared the dish that's all. Each flat had 2 coax sockets for it with at least 1 actually connected (i went into the cupboard where the equipment was and hooked up the second one that was disconnected mwahahahaa).
Didn't have to sign up to sky, could have Virgin media if required.

Phone was all the same, each flat had it's own separate master socket, changed providers as per normal.

However, this was my experience, it depends who built the place and how it's cabled. Definitely check all this before you sign anything.

alx · 24 Sep 2015 at 09:42

Rossi~ said:
We owned a flat with a communal dish, everything was as normal, we just shared the dish that's all. Each flat had 2 coax sockets for it with at least 1 actually connected (i went into the cupboard where the equipment was and hooked up the second one that was disconnected mwahahahaa).
Didn't have to sign up to sky, could have Virgin media if required.

Phone was all the same, each flat had it's own separate master socket, changed providers as per normal.

However, this was my experience, it depends who built the place and how it's cabled. Definitely check all this before you sign anything.

This is my experience too. My previous flat was a relative new build (2007) and each flat had 2 coax sockets for Sky and a master socket for phone so you could have any provider you wanted. Same is true for the new build I just bought as well.