From: frank.kennedy@u2u.lonestar.org (Frank Kennedy) 
Newsgroups: rec.video.satellite
Subject: FCC Docket           4/15
Date: 4 Jan 93 22:32:00 GMT
Distribution: world
Organization: USER-TO-USER PCBoard (214)492-6565 (USR DS v32bis)
Reply-To: frank.kennedy@u2u.lonestar.org (Frank Kennedy) 

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          government action, CSC hopes that mounting evidence of injury and

          the serious concern stated by members of Congress will lead  to

          the adoption of policies to bring about effective competition in

          the television industry.




          6. A 1986 submission to the FCC by the Satellite Television Viewing
          Rights Coalition contained more than 100
          pages of detailed information on sateffite signal reception and
          problems HSD owners had in obtaining
          programming.  See COMMENTS AND REQUEST FOR FULL EVIDENTIARY HEARING
          of the Satellite Television Viewing Rights Coalition, Inc. in
          General Docket No.  86-336, submitted October 20, 1986.
          B.The Saga of the Decoder Upgrade

               From the outset, GIC has besieged HSD owners with a

          continuous stream of module upgrades and other changes in

          technology.  These have often been justified by GIC as essential

          for stopping piracy, although after a point each "upgrade" was

          proof that GIC's last attempt had failed.

               Consumers have been expected to pay for most upgrades,

          except for the VC II and VCRS which was free to several

          subscribing legal consumers.  If people refused defective product

          upgrades, then they risked the loss of their subscription program

          reception and many times paid for repairs or upgrades.

               Moreover, GIC at times complicated the purchase of decoders

          unnecessarily.  For example, with the halt of the production of

          the VC II in 1990, GIC attempted to force pay-per-view

          subscribers to upgrade to the VC II Plus, through their  Product

          Evaluation Program (PEP).  The VC II Plus, (of which over 2,000

          were defective), which has been supplied to PEP consumers,  does

          not carry free upgrade insurance, unlike later VC II Plus

          versions which provide free upgrades and Consumer Security

          Protection Program (CSPP) insurance.

               The free upgrades gave VC II owners VC II PLUS and VC II

          Plus-Modem on Module (MOM) or Video Cipher Renewable Security

          (VC-RS) modules, all with CSPP insurance, which is a  three-year

          free upgrade guarantee.  Meanwhile, the owners of the VC II PLUS

          Blue Modules were left unprotected should there be another

          upgrade.









          C. GIC's Harassment of DECTEC

               Two years ago, facing true competition from the DECTEC

          Corporation, which was about to market a smartcard  decoder, GIC

          engaged in a series of actions to keep DECTEC from  entering the

          marketplace.  GIC's actions included reverse engineering of

          DECTEC's software, seeking proprietary information from DECTEC's

          trade suppliers, campaigning with false information in the press
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