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I have some relatives who have recently moved to Italy and still want British Sky TV.

The previous owners of the house were also Brit expats who'd had the Sky dish realigned to pick up the Brit Sky signal and used their Brit Sky box.

The issue is while the box says the signal strength is strong etc, it doesn't have all the channels accessible and ondemand doesn't function.

So I was wondering if anybody knows of an alternative solution like a company which caters for such circumstances or any other method to solve this?

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    How did you get your Sky box? IIRC, the subsidised kind needs to be connected to a UK landline to work, while the full-price one has fewer restrictions
    – Gagravarr
    Commented May 21, 2014 at 14:51
  • @Gagravarr Full priced tried 3 separate boxes, old standard non-HD/Basic HD box and 2TB HD box all encountering the same issues. Tv guide not loading channel information until after selecting the channel and that data is only for a couple hours so the next day it's blank again, most standard bbc/itv/c4/c5 channels aren't available with others having either standard or HD channel version of channel getting signal with some being intermittent working 1 day but not the next. ...
    – Myzifer
    Commented May 22, 2014 at 8:19
  • Either I think it's the dish which needs to be realigned since we used to get bbc channels, or the signal is now more focused over towards Britain and as such Italy is too far south for a dish there to pick up the signal. Also when you refer to UK landline is this simply for internet connection or connected to the phone line as all the boxes have been tested and function fine over here in England and none of them have been plugged up to a phone line since it's too far away
    – Myzifer
    Commented May 22, 2014 at 8:19
  • This discussion on the sky forums seems to suggest a UK landline connection is needed for multiroom, PPV, and some interactive features, but not basic functionality. Can you get the box to tell you the signal strength?
    – Gagravarr
    Commented May 22, 2014 at 9:29
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    I know of some people on the coasts of the Mediterranean who have Sky dishes and actually get Sky content. However, "regular" dish you have in the UK would probably not be enough as the beam is not strong enough - you're at the edge of the coverage area. You'd probably need a larger dish and a more sensitive receiver. Also, consider that there may be more than one satellite in play (don't know about Sky, but the US DirecTV has several, and different channels may be coming from different satellites). On-Demand/PPV will most definitely require a phone/network feedback connection.
    – littleadv
    Commented May 23, 2014 at 6:13

4 Answers 4

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I have British friends in Japan who have used TV-through-the-net (like Slingbox) to transmit the programming over the internet for viewing through an internet connection anywhere they travel to.

This requires:

  1. Having someone in the UK to set up the box for you and connect it to the internet
  2. Fast enough internet connections on both sides
  3. Some technical aptitude with computers (downloading, installing, and setting up the Slingbox)

Quality depends on the connection, so that is something to look in to prior to taking the leap, and anything like this will require installation fees to set up the SkyTV in the UK, as well as hardware costs for the actual hardware to transmit the programming.

This may be an alternative option if other things don't work.

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    While in Japan there's no other choice, Italy, especially its Northern areas, are actually covered by the BSkyB satellites.
    – littleadv
    Commented May 23, 2014 at 6:11
  • It is an alternative but due to the requirements it's likely not the solution (I've upvoted it as it's the closed yet to a solution) since at least the house I'm in right now doesn't have access to fiber broadband and the adsl connection has terrible upload. Plus on the italy side the best connection they can get for their house is a soon to be 20mb adsl which should mostly be able to handle streaming the content although it's a rural area and with old lines and far from the nearest cabinet etc so who knows what speed they'll get in the end.
    – Myzifer
    Commented May 23, 2014 at 8:11
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Dunno how I didn't spot this before but guess I was too focused around the setup they were already using and had tailored my searches around that but the below links seem to solve the problem mostly albeit losing some channels but being official.

http://www.sky4me.tv/sky-uk-italy

http://www.skyeurope.tv/sky-subscription-italy

Both sites provide access to SKY UK TV to around 18 countries across europe with identical pricing schemes although it's not clear if they both offer the same channel selection.

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    Any chance you could post the salient points from those links in your answer, in case either site changes / vanishes in future?
    – Gagravarr
    Commented May 23, 2014 at 12:15
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Hi everyone we live in comano northern Italy. We have a 1.2 metre dish and a invacom quad lnb. We only use 1 feed for sky tv. We get bbc channels from approx 0700 to 1700 hrs. This also depends on weather. The more cloud rain etc we lose signal. Sky news remains on in bad weather. We use a panasonic dsb 31 box.

I am a ex satelite installer from Spain and my advice would be try and go bigger with the dish we will when we have to change it.

Hope this info helps.

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If you have a decent Internet connection its easy - Use Sky or UKTV4ITALIA

If you want a real or normal TV experience watching through your TV, UKTV4ITALIA do a box that you plug into your hdmi port on your TV and also the internet and you can get all the UK free to air channels and lots more, including all the UK radio channels, 14 day catch up and recording.

Sky has adverts, similar to Youtube (thats where they make their money, and if you try and watch on a big TV screen its a bit grainy (put fine on an iPad) and there is an annoying Sky Logo always on the screen. Not bad for free though!

UKTV4ITALIA does not have advertising or screen logo and its a normal TV experience but the cost is about £10 a month.

You need about 1.2 Mbps download speed (in the evening) for standard definition and you can check your internet by using speedtest .net

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