Context: my apartment building used to provide basic cable to all the residents, and we had cable boxes in our apartments as well as in the lounge spaces in the main office building. They discontinued the service for residents and we had to turn in our boxes, but the tvs in the lounge space still have cable boxes and get those channels.
If I bring a cable box from a friend’s place and plug it into my wall in my apartment, will I have cable again?
I guess what I’m asking is, does the service really come from the box or from the cables in the wall?
In: Technology
The way TV service works now is that your receiver has a decryption key associated with your account. Your key only lets you access the channels you have as part of your service. The signal coming from the telecom company is encrypted in such a way that you can’t just patch in.
Back in the day (80s and 90s) it was just a matter of a physical connection. But they realized that wasn’t enough security and moved to a card based system in the late 90s/early 00s. Over time, as the receivers got more complex, they just moved to digital decryption keys that sit in the equipment’s hard drive. Which is how it records shows for you.
To answer your last question. It’s both. The cable is bringing a signal with a specific lock on it, and only paying customer’s boxes have a key for it. The reason why they want the box back is because they can update/refurbish the equipment and lease it to a new customer. Which saves them money from having to buy a brand new unit.
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