Along the Western Cape coast, plenty of homes are second homes, rental cottages or small guest houses, and each one has to decide how to do DStv. The right answer depends on one question: is anyone paying to stay there?

Your own second home: Holiday Viewing

If the holiday home is for you, your family and friends, DStv has a Holiday Viewing service. As DStv describes it:

You need a DStv account and a second decoder at the holiday home.
You log in at DStv.com, go to My Decoders and move your package to the holiday decoder for the dates you choose.
While it is switched to the holiday home, the DStv at home is turned off.
You can switch back, reconnect or suspend in the same way.

Two details from DStv's help page: billing is not adjusted for the time your package is away, and you cannot upgrade the package while it is on the holiday decoder. If you want a higher package, upgrade on your home decoder first.

A guest house or B&B: DStv Business Stay

If paying guests watch the TV, DStv has a separate commercial product. DStv Business lists its Stay package for hotels and guest houses, bed and breakfasts, retirement villages and clinics, and says it starts from R305 for each TV. We could not confirm what that figure covers, and prices change, so check the current price with DStv Business.

DStv's April 2024 Business brochure says the Stay packages are for accommodation with sleeping rooms and that the movie and general entertainment channels are licensed for in-room viewing only. So the lounge, bar or breakfast room is not covered the same way. If you want TV in a public area, ask DStv Business about the right package.

What about Airbnb and holiday lets?

DStv's pages do not say whether a home rented out on a short-term basis needs a commercial subscription, and we are not going to guess. If paying guests use the TV, ask DStv Business before you assume a home subscription covers it. A call is quicker than a problem.

The cabling matters in any case

Whatever the subscription, each decoder needs its own signal feed. A guest house with several rooms usually needs:

A dish and multi-output LNB that can feed every decoder.
A separate cable to each room. An ordinary splitter does not work, as we explain in the Extra View connection guide.
Good connectors and cable. Salt air along the coast is hard on cheap connectors.

Adding rooms to an old single-decoder installation often means a new LNB and extra cable runs. We do Extra View setups in Hermanus and Cape Town, and we can tell you what the property needs once we see it.

If the place stands empty for months

A dish and decoder only need power, so a holiday home without internet still works the day you arrive. That is one reason a dish still makes sense there, as we describe in DStv dish or DStv Stream. Before the season starts, though, it is worth checking:

The dish is still pointing the right way and nothing has grown into the signal path. See which way a DStv dish points.
The cable and connectors have survived the winter.
The decoder is protected from power surges while nobody is there. See load shedding and your DStv decoder.

Test every TV before guests arrive

Switch on each TV, change a channel on each, and leave a short instruction card in the room. If a TV shows no signal, our no-signal troubleshooting guide covers the likely causes.

If you run a guest house or let a holiday home and want the dish, cabling and decoders checked before the season, we cover Hermanus, Gansbaai, Cape Town and the rest of the Western Cape. Contact us or WhatsApp for a free quote.

DStv for a Guest House, B&B or Holiday Home: Which Option Fits?