[Neil]

What do you mean by switched off?

Is it off at the socket?

This is how it works. Sky send a signal to your Skybox. When you box feels like it it then phones sky so they know it is connected. There is no other way for Sky to know your box is connected to the phone line. It is possible that there is a fault with your box and it cannot phone sky.

If your box is switched off at the mains then it will miss the phone home signal from sky and will not phone them so they will assume it is off.

In standby sky boxes always used to leave the LNB powered up so they could recieve updates to firmware, EPG, keys and phone home commands. Not sure what standby does to a sky box these days. I suspect it still leaves the lnb powered up for the same reason.

A few years ago Sky got a lot of stick because when in standby a Sky box used almost as much power as when watching a program. The trouble is when you keep switching it off at the mains you can miss updates etc.