Box restrictions

[TommyVercetti]

Good Morning, Good Afternoon and Good Evening (whichever applies)

Could anyone shed some light on the following scenario? I will be staying at a relatives house for a few weeks, they have an active Virgin Connection in their home. The question is can I take my TV Box and use it there (with them having an active Virgin Media connection) or will the box not give me access to my package?

[Anonymous]

I would presume yes, as your box is identified by a smart card embedded within the box, which links to your services.

[TommyVercetti]

@ps1978 Thank you, I will give it ago

[japitts]

The answer from @Anonymous  is unfortunately incorrect.

The box is authenticated on the street cabinet connections, and so if powered up at an address other than where it's registered, won't work.

The workaround in this case would be to use the TV Go app on any compatible device, in order to watch any channel not in their package, that way.

[TommyVercetti]

Oh Ok, Thanks @Japitts. I thought it was a long shot but I thought I'd ask others.

I do have the Virgin TV Go app on my phone and I guess I can try casting to the TV.

Thank You

[nodrogd]

Yep! The Mac addresses of your kit has to match the address of the optical node driving the network segment you are connected too. If this changes your account usually gets blocked within a short period, as equipment must only be used at the registered address.

Also with TV boxes, these must be on the same home network as the registered Virgin hub or the system callbacks will fail & will again block the account.

[Ernie_C]

…. and you can’t cast the Virgin TV Go app.

[Roger_Gooner]

I'm happy to be proven wrong, but as authentication of MAC addresses is done by the CMTS I can't see a problem if equipment is moved around in the area served by the hub site. In the HFC network the only processing downstream of the hub site is done by optical nodes (for fibre/coaxial conversion) and amplifiers with no means of identifying individual subscribers if they've moved equipment. This is why it's happened that sometimes a customer does a house move early and finds that they still have their service in the new place as they are using their equipment which is still activated.