Using Sky+ after subscription has ended. Any pitfalls?

[randombs]

Hey all.

My dad cut Sky off a few months back when we got Virgin. We had two Sky boxes running (Sky+ downstairs, regular Sky upstairs) using Sky's multiroom subscription.

Now that our Sky subscription has been cut, the Sky upstairs works fine with free channels.

My mum wants to be able to watch some free channels downstairs that aren't available on Virgin but I'm concerned about the Sky+ functionality.

According to random forums I found while Googling there's a way to enable Sky+ features on a box without any actual Sky+ subscription (such as Sky1 or whatever) by paying Sky ?10 a month. Apparently it's designed for people who buy second-hand STBs and want to use them, or for people who just wanna watch FTA stuff but still retain PVR functionality.

The thing is, Sky+ stuff is working for me right now (rewinding and recording, and even watching old recordings made earlier this year but only stuff from free channels, any recordings from paid-for channels naturally don't work due to the encryption) so I'm not sure what this ?10 a month thing is.

When we first got multiroom we received a letter from Sky saying they couldn't locate our box through the phone line and if we didn't sort it out we'd have to pay two subs. Our number is ex-directory and this was the problem so we sorted it. Right now, the Sky+ box isn't connected to the phone line so I'm worried they might get angry. Also, it could be that the PVR stuff is working because I haven't plugged it into the phone line yet, as though that might make them go "hey, he left us!".

So in short, if I use my Sky+ box even though we no longer subscribe, can Sky do anything such as demand a subscription in retrospect?

[gIzzE]

It will get a signal at some point switching off the + feature, however, you may be lucky.

Nothing to do with the phone line.

[randombs]

Yep, it got the signal about a month ago and it's all kushti. I was just worried something would go belly-up if I didn't play by their rules!

[gIzzE]

Nothing they can do, you are no longer in a contract with them.

I cancelled my second box a couple of months back, as it was getting too expensive with the second sub at £10 and then HD on that at £10 too, meant I was paying them £88 a month, and they turned off the non Free to Air channels immediately but the Sky+ feature only a couple of weeks ago.