said by Rangersfan :said by maartena:This topic is about a neighbor sharing his service with another neighbor, not about a single individual trying to tap in to any wired service illegally.
You are still on page 1 when the discussion has moved to page 2. The "sharing" scenario mentioned by the OP in the first message in this thread is not even possible.
The discussion has now evolved into to whether or not someone who is found to have committed theft of U-verse services can be subject to criminal prosecution. Your position is that U-verse is not considered cable TV service; therefore, the thief would be immune from any type of criminal prosecution. Others have tried to point out to you that your viewpoint is not correct because there are too many state and federal laws that cover the thief of any type of service that can be used to prosecute the offender.
Again:
This is not *MY* position. It is the position of the FCC, combined with what AT&T wants. (They do not want to be labeled a "cable service" by FCC, and thus be subject to ALL laws regarding "cable service")
The state laws I have seen here pertain mostly about an individual stealing service from a provider, which in all reality is only still possible with analog cable, POTS phone lines, and electricity service. If you climb up your pole in the back yard, and hijack cable service from the local cable company, yes you break the law.
THEFT of U-Verse isn't even possible. You cannot go out and buy a Residential Gateway, hack it, hook it up to a phone line, buy a hacked STB, and expect you can get television service. It's just not possible. It is only possible to SHARE U-verse service, where a correctly installed U-Verse Internet/TV service is being shared to a neighbor with a CAT5 cable, and one of your STB's (or perhaps, a activated XBox360 or a wireless receiver).
Anyone that is using a U-Verse STB from a neighbor is not stealing it. At least not in such a way the law describes theft of telecommunication service, as they are not directly stealing it from the telecommunication company by hacking in to there systems, which is exactly what all these telecommunication theft laws posted here so far are describing.
What I am saying is this:
If you, and a neighbor, go in on it together, and share the connection that is coming in to neighbor 1, between both neighbor 1 and 2 with your own connection between neighbor 1 and 2 (whether this be wired with coax or CAT5, or wireless by simply moving a wireless receiver), there are NO federal laws, and NO state laws that would allow prosecution of any kind.
You will be in violation of the TOS (and AT&T can do whatever they want with yout account), but not in violation of any laws.
It is the same is moving 1 of your 4 DirecTV/Dish receivers to a friends house (or your own 2nd house) with a self-installed Dish. Are you violating the TOS? Yes. Are you violating the law? Absolutely not.
And its the same way as sharing your wireless internet with a neighbor. Are you breaking the law there? Nope, you are just in violation of the TOS. People with an open access point do not get prosecuted under the law just because they share their internet with the world.
