Stupid Technical Question.

[PILMAN]

Before you read NO I am NOT into hacking and NO I am not attempting to do anything illegal, I am asking because it's one of those questions that has been picking away at my brain.

Dish network uses one way satellite dish antennas. Some of us don't have our phone lines plugged in or can't because we use cell phones or another source. I have been wondering how DISH actually cancels a users programming if they don't pay their monthly bill. Will give you an example, i'm late on my dish network bill but it's been 3 weeks and they haven't shut down my service. All my receivers are still getting channels. Do they broadcast from their satellites a list of receiver serials to deactivate if the user doesn't pay their bill or something? I've always wondered how they shut down a person because technically it seems like a person could get free programming if they had a subscription and didn't pay there bill and just left their receiver off or something because I think if you don't use the receiver for like a month it automatically deactivates. Do they just not send the receiver a new key or something and it deactivates? Again this is not related to hacking I'm just curious about the technology so please don't get hostile on me you've seen my past posts .

 

[noremac]

Dish can deactivate your receiver at any time. This is done via the satellite signal, addressed specifically to your box. No phone line connection is used. Yes, the box would have to be plugged in. But you couldn't watch anything without having it plugged in.

Since Dish is in business to cultivate and retain customers, they probably aren't going to shut people off for being a little late on a bill. But after some point, just like the power company and water company, you're going to get the ax!

 

[PILMAN]

Dish can deactivate your receiver at any time. This is done via the satellite signal, addressed specifically to your box. No phone line connection is used. Yes, the box would have to be plugged in. But you couldn't watch anything without having it plugged in.

Since Dish is in business to cultivate and retain customers, they probably aren't going to shut people off for being a little late on a bill. But after some point, just like the power company and water company, you're going to get the ax!

Right but I'm sure their not continuously sending a signal to attempt to deactivate the box. If they did that with everyone I think that'd be bandwidth issues galore. I'm sure they randomly try to deactivate it but I'm just saying if someone were to plug in their receiver from time to time seems like they could technically get free tv right there. Would kind of be pointless especially for my self as I order a lot of payperviews.

 

[larrystotler]

Actually, AFAIK, they send out the kill signal continuously on ALL deactivated receivers. As the file grows, it takes longer to send, but that is the only way they can make sure it has been done.(unless they have recovered the box and refurbed it).

 

[Pepper]

The newer receivers and the yellow cards, if I understand correctly, are authorized for a certain number of days, if the receiver does not get another authorization within that time period to reset the counter, it will de-authorize when it expires.

 

[KE4EST]

larryst. is right. It don't take that much bandwidth cause is a real quick hit from one to the next and then it starts over. If you turn off a receiver that is not hooked up, and then hook it up give it an hour or two it will turn off.

Yes dish network does give u a pretty good grace period. So just pay ur bill and if you don't think you can pay that much next month call and drop to the top 60 and turn of HBO, Starz, Playboy etc and stop using PPV you would be surprised at how much your bill drops.

 

[purwater]

A few years ago I had a 2700 receiver that I replaced with a 301. I wrote down the receiver info and disconnected it and installed the new 301. Then I called Dish and had them swapped out. I gave the 2700 to a friend wanting a second receiver for the bedroom. About a month after I gave it to him he finally got around to installing it and calling Dish to activate on his account. Well he did activate it and later when scrolling through the channels he realized that he had every single channel on the AEP. I have the AEP and he only had the AT180. He continued to receive the AEP for all this time until he got his new yellow smartcard last month. Now he receives the AT180. Seems some of the old receivers would retain programming for some reason. He got to enjoy all the premiums for all that time for free.

 

[cdru]

At one point in time several years ago, I had heard that Dish only sends the deactivation signal for around 6 months. If you unplugged your receiver before it was deactivated and waited those 6 months, then Dish basically forgot about you and the receiver just went on with how it was programmed 6 months prior. Whether that is true or not, I don't know.

It's not like it would be hard for dish to send out a kill-all command and then exclude those that are legitimate receivers on file.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Well, just for the record, the situation purwater describes is relatively common (with the old blue cards).

Here's what happened:

1. Box is shut down (can't see any satellite signals).
2. Box is deactivated ("kill" hit is sent, but not seen by the box)
3. Box is activated on new account - but not yet plugged in
4. A new "programming" hit is sent - but not seen by the box
5. Box is plugged in, and never sees any hits, so keeps on with the old set.

CDRU:

Note that blue card "kill" hits ARE repeated. Often at first, less often over time. I suspect that the kills can be sent as ranges of serial numbers, so as more and more boxes are shut down, the load on the stream doesn't grow as fast, with the nice side effect of when a box that is being shut down changes a S/N range, everybody in the range gets a fresh & frequent set of "kill" hits.

The yellow card system closes the step-by-step hole I just described, and eliminates the need for a pile of "kills" in the stream.

 

[Stargazer]

They would quit sending down the kill packet for that reciever and card once it would get reactivated again so if you did not have it hooked up before the first kill packet gets sent down and didnt hook it up until after it was reactivated in their system then the reciever would have never gotten the command therefore would not recieve the correct channels. This could cause you to have more or less channels than what you are supposed to have.

 

[SimpleSimon]

They would quit sending down the kill packet for that reciever and card once it would get reactivated again so if you did not have it hooked up before the first kill packet gets sent down and didnt hook it up until after it was reactivated in their system then the reciever would have never gotten the command therefore would not recieve the correct channels. This could cause you to have more or less channels than what you are supposed to have.

Thank you for explaining my post is such simple terms.

I especially like your extensive use of punctuation.

 

[Stargazer]

I know, I have a lot of runon sentences. I think more of what I want to type than trying to punctuate correctly.

 

[TuxCoder]

I noticed also. That's OK though. Maybe I can help. Now the thread is more balanced. I mean a higher "sentences to thoughts" ratio. That's all.

 

[SimpleSimon]

I noticed also. That's OK though. Maybe I can help. Now the thread is more balanced. I mean a higher "sentences to thoughts" ratio. That's all.

ROFLMAO.

 

[larrystotler]

What's a thought? Do I have them? Where is my TV?????

 

[Stargazer]

I do a lot of chatting on the messengers where most people do not punctuate at all and all lowercased without capital letters and so forth so that must be rubbing off on me. English was also not my best subject in school.

 

[larrystotler]

My typing is horrible. I can't seem to move my hands as fast as I want to...... Being a former Sysop of a BBS, those are the rules that evolved over time. CAPS have always been considered yelling. At least now we can edit our posts to fix our mistakes........