The title should really read ‘how not to hack DSTV in Kenya and avoid jail time.’ Hacking DSTV is illegal in Kenya and all other countries in Africa for that matter. Kenyan laws make it very clear that it is illegal to obtain service dishonestly from any licensed telecommunications provider. The penalty is a fine of up to one million shillings, imprisonment of upto five years of both. Clearly, it is not worth the risk to hack DSTV. Multichoice Africa is extremely vigilant at protecting the integrity of their system. They have a highly adept investigation team and regularly carry out raids in conjunction with the Kenya Police…so be warned.
Legal DSTV Alternatives
Rather than take the risk of hacking DSTV, you should consider a couple of alternatives:
- Free-to-air (FTA) satellite TV channels – point your dish to a satellite that offers a wide range of FTA channels such as the NileSat 102 which offers several free movie channels such as MBC 1,2,3 and 4 as well as Aljazeera News and several other English language channels. See ourMBC 2 live streaming page for Hollywood movies in English. You will need an FTA receiver to complete the set-up (your DSTV decoder will be useless for this).
- If you need to watch sports channels, you may need to invest in a second satellite dish (90 cm diameter and above) to track satellites (such as EutelSat W3 and RDV) that offer FTA sport channels. Your options with two dishes are increase because you will merely switch between the receivers to watch your preferred programming. You will only incur the initial set-up and installation charges e.g. 5,000 for a dish and that’s it. No more recurring charges from DSTV or ZUKU.
For more information, read the article on ‘How to Get Free Satellite TV in Kenya‘.
Tips & Warnings
- DO NOT ask your neighbor to ‘sambaza’ DSTV’ to you via a multiplexer. This is an offence under the law and attracts severe penalties as already outlined. This is common in a number of Estates in Nairobi where ‘subscribers’ pay about KES 1,000 to access the Premium Package. Many people have been arrested, tried and sentenced.