Someone more familiar can provide a better scoop, but the Euroland equivalent of US DBS/DSS appears a bit more standardized - or at least, a bit more open - than the services offered in the US. (I do find one page complaining about Sky TV's access cards, so apparently it's not perfect, even there.)
The standard is
'DVB', and
this link shows some of the hardware involved.That said, quoting from DVB.org-
Echostar International Corporation's parent company "Echostar Communications Corporation" (ECC), headquartered in Denver, USA, consists of: -- "The DISH Network", a DVB-compliant service in NTSC for North America via Echostar's uplink centre in Cheyenne and Echostar's DBS satellites at 119° west[...]
So Dish is based on the standard (and DirecTV, as far as I know, is not; they came earlier to the game with their own blend of tech), but good luck trying to pull off the 'authentication'/decryption legally; none of the existing hardware can take an access card. You might be able to watch some of the US free-to-air feeds, but when we had a billing dispute with Dish, the set top box stopped decrypting anything - I don't know if this means their *boxes* go into an unnecessary 'suicide mode' when the installed key disappears from the authorized list, or if even the 'free' channels (the demo channel, the public-access, PBS and University feeds) are encrypted despite their nature.
If you're crazy enough, it's possible to catch free-to-air digital programming in the US, but it's not the easiest (or cheapest) thing in the world.
Skyvision offers a boatload of equipment for same;
they have a free-to-air channel list, but as far as I know, only the Ku transponders would have a hope of being DVB.
