Access to SKY channels in Sicily

Hi - for about 8 years we have had an apartment in Sicily and always enjoy visiting. In the past we had a contract with Sky Italia but terminated it (with some difficulty!) when it became too expensive for our 8 weeks total annual time at our apartment. Unlike Sky Uk Sky italia insist on you returning the box but as we still had the satellite disk we could use another box. However we can now only get Sky News in English together with a lot off German channels (all this from the Hot Birds satellite). Our local Sicilian expert (!) now suggests that with a "second hand" Sky box and with the same satellite ( or a different one ?) we could get many more English channels.

Does anyone have any experience of this ?

Hmmm,

The SKY channels will be a problem, but there will be 'English' channels available somewhere, but they are likely to be such as BBC World News, not your mainstream terrestrial channels.

I would strongly suggest (before committing) that you check the Hotbird satellite site and check which English channels are available.

On the Sky Italia box, I went down this same route years ago and told them to come and collect it, They declined the offer and sent a letter saying that I should consider it no longer supported. After two years they sent another letter saying that they did not want it back, keep it !

Is an internet solution an option ? Not sure how many UK channels you want, here is the International version of Sky News https://news.sky.com/watch-live

There are other options (VPN, IPTV) but your eight week total annual time leaves them difficult to justify ?

V

Hi Woody, I would get Italian digital TV and on the majority of channels you can change the language to English if the programme was originally in English if you have a modern TV. It's free (you'll need to pay for a CAM and card if you need to receive it via a satellite - TIVUSAT). There are tons of films every night. 

The other thing you can do is get a mobile wifi router from one of the telecom companies (my firends use Vodafone) and there is usually an offer for the summer whereby you can use the internet and stream UK tv.