Patent ID: 7644429

Claim:
A conditional access system for affording conditional access to subscribers, comprising: a receiver for a subscriber; a subscriber management system for at least storing subscription information of said subscriber; a subscriber authorization system coupled to the subscriber management system; a communications server, wherein said communications server is connected directly to the subscriber authorization system without passing through the subscriber management system; and a direct link for connecting the receiver with the communications server, wherein the subscriber management system sends a subset of the subscriber information to said subscriber authorization system, wherein the subset of the subscriber information comprises subscriber access rights, wherein said subscriber authorization system is adapted to: generate entitlement management messages using the subset of the subscriber information, in response to a command received from said receiver via said communications server, and wherein said entitlement management messages are sent back to said receiver via the direct link; and renew the subscriber's access rights automatically, wherein the subscriber authorization system stores the subset of subscriber information received from the subscriber management system for generating renewal messages.