Patent ID: 8046810

Claim:
A method of providing access to a subscription service in a signal distribution system to a system user at a location remote from a home location of the user, the subscription service comprising a plurality of selectable channels available to the user at the home location, the home and remote locations being serviced by respective first and second head ends of the system, the method comprising the steps of: obtaining in the second head end content for at least one channel of said subscription service available to the user at the home location; and inserting said content into a program stream utilizable for delivery of content to an interface device at the remote location to thereby make the channel accessible to the user at the remote location; wherein content for each of the plurality of channels is transported from the first head end to the second head end regardless of any particular channel selection made by the user via the interface device at the remote location and regardless of any availability of at least a portion of the content at the second head end as a result of subscription services provided to any other users serviced by the second head end; and wherein the plurality of channels is associated in the first head end with a multicast group reserved only for the user, said multicast group comprising a plurality of multicast addresses reserved for providing the user with remote access to the plurality of selectable channels available to the user at the home location.