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Home Away From Home Program

207K views 306 replies 94 participants last post by  dosgringos 
#1 ·
Not too long ago there was an announcement that Shaw Direct had canceled their Home Away From Home program, posted on Digital Home at http://www.digitalhome.ca/content/view/3559/279/. HAFH, explained below, would henceforth only be available to customers already on the program.

I recently asked Contact Us at Shaw what the program was all about, and the legalities of receiving Shaw in the U.S., and got this reply today:

"Home Away From Home is a program offered to our customers who are looking to stay connected to Shaw Direct (previously Starchoice) year round. The purpose of the program is to ship a second dish and self install kit (if necessary) to a 2nd residence within Canada so that customers can continue to enjoy Shaw Direct programming while on vacation (at the cottage, RV, etc.) You can have both your primary residence and vacation residence all under one account. One account = one bill.

HAFH is NOT to be used for watching programming at two locations simultaneously. You are responsible for ensuring us that the programming is being watched at one address at a time, not both.

$99 plus tax one time charge to cover the cost of the dish. $13.99 shipping fee for dish. Receivers purchased at regular Cash and Carry price . Thank you for choosing Shaw Direct.
Raj, Shaw Direct"
 
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#108 ·
2 homes

i am debating on this and need your advise. I want to cancel my cable home line and get a satelite, i also have a cottage up north and thought if i get a satelite and and extra reciever can i use one at home and the other up at my cottage. i can install dish up north (they will install for free at home). Is there any problems, can we watch while up north and our daughter if she is at home? This would be alot cheaper, i dont realy watch alot of tv in summer at cottage but in winter it would be nice. i was actually thinking of Shaw satelite. Any help or suggestions.

Thanks
 
#115 ·
Has something changed about HAFH

Hello - I've been, I believe a long-time HAFH subscriber but now it seems the program may not exist anymore. It seems to have been replaced by a program where one pays 75% of the "home at home" price for the "home away from home" service. Has this happened to anyone else or am I simply misunderstanding the options offered to me?
 
#116 ·
Home Away From Home users and US users has just been cancelled by SD, I was only getting some of the new channels and finally got through to be told to bad we just cancelled your HAFH, they offered to set up a 2nd account for 1/2 price but could only be used in Canada or at another residence.
They are going to lose me and a bunch of people after this BS.
 
#121 ·
So what actually will change? As long as you have the same LNB at both locations they don't know what receivers are at each location so nothing will change. It just won't be official anymore and new HAFH customers will have to find additional dish/LNB on their own.
 
#122 ·
Home Away Going Away

Hi all
This is now getting much worse - apparently effective today, with no notice, the Home Away program is no more. The replacement program is a second account at half price although the first agent I spoke with wanted to charge 75%. Therefore, those of us who have been legitimately in the Home Away program will have to get the second account. Of course those who wisely did not enroll in the Home Away program will have no problem - so much for being forthright!
 
#127 ·
I have my HAFH within the footprint. I have changed over my receivers at the cottage - where I spend my late spring, summer and early fall. My home is still on the old LNB. I was planning on switching them over to the new LNB tomorrow as I have to go there anyways. Are SD going to hassle me to setup two accounts? Is this what I am reading? I am a longtime customer and this is very disappointing if it's true.
 
#128 ·
Fcc in the States has revoked SD license to allow people to pick up channels in the US. As such Crtc apparently has changed SD licensing to require them to charge for HAFH. Existing customers will have to set up a new account that will be billed at 50% of the original account, and new customers to HAFH will have to pay 75%. I suspect that this is due to Large amounts of lobbying by Bell and Dish, as Bell has been complaining to the CRTC for years. All existing channels will still be available in the states, but will be watched at the customers own risk as FCC will supposedly be sending around investigators to where a Shaw dish is spotted, and will be charged a $5000 fine if it is found to be connected. Shaw was notified of this on may 30 and had to start complying within 24 hours, so don`t try and hang this one on them!!
 
#150 ·
Fcc in the States has revoked SD license to allow people to pick up channels in the US. As such Crtc apparently has changed SD licensing to require them to charge for HAFH.
There is no such thing as an FCC license for Shaw Direct as the FCC does not have authority for DTH providers outside of the United States so please stop your conspiracy theories.
 
#129 ·
Is there a link for this new FCC rule about receiving foreign satellite transmission in the USA? I have used HAFH myself in Florida until trees grew too tall for me to receive a signal for SD. I am still in the HAFH program but haven't used it in a couple of years. Is that why I'm not receiving the new channels even though I have two 630's and one 600 and a new LNB installed just this past November. Do I have to phone in and explain all this?

I could not find info on this new FCC rule through a Google search other than some exotic US Government letter in 2011 about receivers being exempted upon request to allow reception of foreign satellite transmissions.

Also, there does not seem to be any licensing procedure that SD was subject to that I could find other than the possible "exempt" status request process in the 2011 letter. Did SD ask for an exemption? I admit I cannot decipher what the 2011 letter refers to with all the acronyms used in that letter.
 
#130 ·
Disgruntled CSR

Had a very long chat with someone from the HAFH department. He wasn't very happy, probably due to a pile of complaints. Told me that the program was officially disbanded two days ago. Any time I call, I am getting hassled because they claim I am not "registered". I am registered but it was years ago and they claim that the system was changed in how they record HAFH customers. It seems that with some digging, they do find my record but if I call, they tell me right away that I am not registered. They seem to want to register me now despite the program being cancelled. I had to call recently because my dish had broken due to strong winds (tripod set-up and it fell). They sent me a replacement dish. Looks like I beat the deadline on that one.

Seems like they don't have the details of the new program sorted out but it looks like they want to set up HAFH customers on a second account charging them half of what they currently pay.
 
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