said by Rangersfan :If you think no laws apply to the authorized reception of U-verse TV service, go ahead and do it. Then call AT&T, tell the what you have done, and tell them that their is nothing that they can do to stop since you have broken no laws.
AT&T can do whatever they want.... they can disconnect you, they can put your address on a black list, they can put your SSN (if available) on a blacklist, they can do all sorts of things to make sure you will never get an account again. And/or your "borrowing" neighbor for that matter. They have total freedom as to who they want as a customer, and they can make the determination whether a customer has violated their terms of service, and take action. "No shoes, no shirt, no service" and/or "we reserve the right to refuse any customer" applies here. There is NO law that says AT&T has to provide service (besides maybe a lifeline law for an analog/pots phone line) to anyone.
But what they can NOT do, is legally prosecute you under the law as it currently stands, and have a court convict you of a crime, and issue some form of legal punishment. There will be no visit from the police to arrest you, there will be no court order, there will be no prosecution under the law.
Stealing cable service.... is a different anyways, also from a technical point of view. And it is fading away with digitizing cable as well.... in the days of analog cable you could have 1 house paying for service, and supply TV to the house to your left and right, and share the bill. That problem became rampant, and that is why laws were made specifically for cable services.
Things are further complicated with the wireless receiver. What is to keep you from just putting the wireless receiver in your neighbors house?
Laws are always out of date, and the rise of DBS satellite systems in the 90ies and IPTV in the Teens, do not mean that they therefore are automatically considered "cable service" or a "utility service". The FCC is dragging their feet to classify either as a "cable service", and they in turn are heavily being controlled by lobbyism. It will happen eventually, but as it stands right now..... someone that is sharing their U-Verse TV with the neighbor by drilling a hole in the wall and running CAT5 or Coax through the wall, is in violation of the TOS, but not in violation of the law.
And again, there is a BIG difference of being "in violation of terms of service" and "in violation of the law".
To compare, you are technically in violation of the terms of service if you install DirecTV in one house, with 4 receivers.... and then "lend" one of those receivers to your friend 20 miles down the road, who still has a DirecTV dish left over from a previous owner. All you would have to do is hook it up, and you would have the same television, including any big sports packages such as NFL Sunday Ticket and whatnot. Again, can DirecTV disconnect you for being in breach of their TOS? Yes. Can they prosecute you under the law? Nope.
No LAWS are breached. Just TOS.
(Granted, there MAY be a local ordinance that says "thou shalt not span a wire over the road that isn't authorized" but that is a different law).