The short answer is—no, you don’t. Satellite TV is entirely an over-the-air service provisioning, which means that you don’t need a cable line, a telephone line or any other physical lines to enjoy Satellite TV service.

Satellite TV gets all programming via a satellite dish which in turn collects the signals beamed by an orbiting satellite, which in turn also receives the signals coming from the service provider. A setup box, also known as satellite TV receiver is used to decrypt these signals.

So, in order to receive and enjoy satellite TV, all that is needed is a satellite dish and a satellite receiver—that’s about it. You don’t need cables and definitely no phone lines.

There is however, the bundled service offered by major satellite TV providers like DirecTV and Dish Network. This is the bundling of several services: phone, high speed internet access plus the satellite TV programming—all in one bill. This facilitates easier follow-ups of the household bills and an easier payment scheme since all utility payments are integrated in one, single bill.

Additional Notes:

Because of its over-the-air aspect, satellite TV has the flexibility unrivaled by any cable or even free-to-air TV businesses. The capacity to send massive chunks of data, more so than the capacity of physical cable wires, and over disparate topographical and geographical locations make satellite TV a very highly accessible, more financially viable and reliable niche in the TV broadcasting market.

In terms of programming scope, satellite TV offers more channels with more high definition choices, thi

s is again because of the physical limitations of cable wires, which can only compress data so much before signal quality starts to degrade. Satellite TV doesn’t have this limitation.

Cable infrastructure has high maintenance costs, which translates to higher monthly fees for the customers. Utilizing open space, satellite TV has very minimal costs and can afford really competitive pricing for equal or even better program packages than cable.