From: larry@ducktales.med.ge.com (Larry Landwehr)
Subject: Re: Authorization
Summary: Re: Authorization
Organization: GE Medical Systems, Magnetic Resonance
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 92 19:46:57 GMT

In article <199211161844.AA14717@sunset.cse.nau.edu>,         Bob Wier <rrw@SUNSET.CSE.NAU.EDU> writes:
>  At the end of the summer, I switched from subscribing to Showtime to
>  subscribing to HBO (plus other services).  I didn't have the "de"
>  authorization problem.  I'd think that the authorization center would
>  have some sort of master list sorted by vc id number to prevent this
>  (but on the other hand, this IS G.I.).  If it was me, I'd call my
>  new provider (if you havn't already) and tell 'em the probelm and see
>  what they have to say...
> 
>  I'd be interested in knowing if you get this resolved...

___________________________________________

Here's a letter from rrg@prologic.com (Ron Gomes) on the subject:
(posted with permission)


Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 15:10:23 -0500
From: rrg@prologic.com (Ron Gomes)
Subject: Re: Authorization

When you lose authorization, what's the symptom?  Do you just get "No
subscription for this service" on scrambled channels, or do you get
"Authorization not available" (and unit status S:-OC on the "setup-0"
screen)?

For months I've had the latter problem.  I'm fairly certain that I
never saw it happen until I was using two different program providers.
It's intermittent and unpredictable, but it happens often enough that I
was finally able to actually see it happen before my eyes: the unit is
"hit" (the hit count on the setup-0 screen is incremented) and
immediately goes into the S:-OC state.  The "Authorization not
available" message then appears on every scrambled channel regardless
of whether I have a subscription to that channel.

I'm no longer using two program providers but I still have the
problem.  It seemed to me that it had to be something in the datastream
(maybe some game GI is playing); certainly it's triggered by something
in the datastream, whether deliberately or not.  But GI denied this and
told me to send the unit in for replacement (it's still under
warranty); they said they've seen some other units behave this way.

So I've shipped it off to them and expect that I'll get something back
in the mail within a few weeks.  If they replace it they'll probably
send an RS module, which makes me a little nervous because I've heard
that there are reliability problems and heat problems with the RS
units.  But I don't see that I have much choice.

				Ron Gomes
				rrg@prologic.com
___________________________________________

Ron also wrote:


I ended service with the second provider (Netlink--I consolidated all
my subscriptions with NPS) on Nov. 4th, so if, indeed, they send out
"de-authorizations", it's possible they would continue to do it for a
while.  But why the two program providers would interfere with each
other while both were active, I can't say; everyone I spoke to about
this denied it was possible, but I never really spoke to anyone whose
technical judgement I considered reliable.
___________________________________________


I went from two providers (free one & dealer one) to two providers
(one of the previous ones & NPS). By the end of this month only
NPS should be active. We'll see what happens.
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