Comcast STB at another address

[idunno71]

I took my stb box to my moms house about 5 miles away from my house and the box worked.
My questions is how long will it work there and can comcast know that the box is at that address?
Thanks

[Bobby]

If the box works there today it will continue to work there tomorrow. If you have taken one of your STBs to your mom's house they will catch on and take your mom to jail because she is stealing service.

[idunno71]

How can they catch on. Can they know its at another address?

[mdovell]

Well there's a few factors that you haven't stated.

1) is this a analog cable box or a digital? an analog cable box at this point I think is pointless. Most cable co's that I know of have take off any encrypted analog programming so you really don't need a box for analog cable.

2) was she already paying for cable?

If it's a analog box there's really no point

If it's a digital they can easily find out because it's a two way communication. Cable companies receive information back which is used for a number of things. Locally directed commericals, better ratings determined, on demand programming etc.

At best if it's digital it might work for at the most about a month. After a month the box won't work at her house or back at yours either

A digital box was given a unique identifier. They are given by the cable co's out...they know customer xyz has box 123. Every time it's turned on, turned off, what channels are watched is all recorded. Now they see 353 whatever main street has box 123...hmmm.

[idunno71]

Thanks for the info.
I now see its not the way to go....
Cheers

[harshness]

Boxes can't typically be tracked to the street address level, but they can tell when they have moved from one node to another. Same with cable modems.

In the case of my local Comcast, the box (or modem) won't even work if plugged into the wrong node.