Daryl Gray
June 14th, 2005, 01:26 AM
Dish Network is on track for a completion of their full smart card swap by late summer of the year. Dish Network, a wholly owned subsidiary of Echostar Communications Corp. is the United States second largest direct to home satellite provider, servicing over 11 million American homes. Last summer Dish Network introduced a new smart card, dubbed the “Nagra 2” or “Yellow Card” in their battle to curb their runaway piracy problem.
The new smart card is the second generation of conditional access security for Echostar’s Dish Network, which has had a rampant piracy problem since 1998. A number of previous card revisions had been introduced, but they had not succeeded in putting a damper on the piracy problem.
In fact, a drama-packed civil court proceedings is still being fought in the United States. In it Echostar and Nagra allege that the Dish Network piracy problem was initiated on behest of News Corp., which ironically now holds controlling interest in Dish Network’s competitor, Directv. The suit revolves around a former Directv pirate distributor, who Echostar alleges became an employees of News Corp.’s conditional access division, News Datacom and later was contracted to compromise the Nagra security system, which was still secure at the time despite News Datacom’s version for Directv, which was hacked less than 6 months after their operation. Echostar further alleges that News Corp. was instrumental and provided financing to distribute the Echostar hack widely through the United States and Canada via a closed dealer network involving a small army of individuals that are also involved in the suit. It is this security breach which the new Dish Network smart card will patch.
In 2002, Dish Network began negotiations for the next generation of smart card security from Nagravision, a division of the Kudelski Group, which provides the conditional access security for many satellite television companies worldwide. The new smart card is rumoured to be a variant of the Nagra 2 smart card that has been secure in Europe for some time.
Dish Network has already begun the transition to their new smart card platform, slowly shutting down popular subscription channel blocks to subscribers using the older version card. This strategy has been used for some time as it prompts legitimate subscribers to contact the satellite company to request a new card.
The security swap out will mark the first time since 1997 that all North American satellite television companies have been piracy free. Directv Inc, the leading U.S. satellite direct to home provider has had no piracy problem since Early 2004 when they fully adopted their new conditional access platform.
This caused a large transition of piracy from the Directv system to the Dish Network system, nearly doubling their piracy problem overnight. This further exploded when pirates found a way to modify legal free to air satellite receivers to tune into the Dish Network signal subscription free. This caused significant concern as the sale of free to air receivers were much more difficult to enforce than traditional piracy devices.
Bell Expressvu, the leading Canadian satellite provider, which uses the same equipment and security as the Dish Network system, also recently reported that they expect a card swap completion by July 1, 2005.
Once the Dish security swap is complete, this will mark the end of more than a decade of satellite piracy problems in North America, which began in early 1995, shortly after the Directv DBS service was first launched in the summer of 1994.
Analysts speculate that the new smart card upgrade will cause a sudden surge in subscriber numbers once complete as tens of thousands of former pirates open their wallets to fill the entertainment void. The strategy was certainly successful for Directv, who saw record new subscriber counts shortly after adopting aggressive new anti-piracy measures in 2002.
The North American DTH market is high competitive and expensive to service with each service still struggling to maintain profitability as new subscriber acquisition costs and the costs of new satellites and uplink centers weigh heavily on their bottom line. Dish Network now has more than 9 satellites in orbit, with Directv following close behind with eight. Additionally, each service is expected to launch up to 6 more in the coming years to service the growing high definition market, which requires a great satellite capacity than standard definition channels. The latest entrant to the DTH power struggle, VOOM, folded earlier this year, unable to attract any significant subscriber numbers. Echostar quickly picked the bones clean, snapping up the VOOM satellite, orbital slot and high definition programming produced by VOOM.
As operational costs soar, it is clear that to ensure the survival of DTH satellite broadcasters, every subscriber counts and the satellite broadcaster must stay a step ahead in the years to come to avoid a repeat of earlier costly mistakes.
Any Dish Network subscribers that have not yet received their new smart card in the mail are urged to contact Dish Network as soon as possible at 1.800.333.DISH to prevent a total loss of their subscription programming. New Dish Network receivers purchased since last summer, should already contain the new smart card, which is yellow in color in comparison to the older blue colored one.
©2005 Digital Insurrection
The new smart card is the second generation of conditional access security for Echostar’s Dish Network, which has had a rampant piracy problem since 1998. A number of previous card revisions had been introduced, but they had not succeeded in putting a damper on the piracy problem.
In fact, a drama-packed civil court proceedings is still being fought in the United States. In it Echostar and Nagra allege that the Dish Network piracy problem was initiated on behest of News Corp., which ironically now holds controlling interest in Dish Network’s competitor, Directv. The suit revolves around a former Directv pirate distributor, who Echostar alleges became an employees of News Corp.’s conditional access division, News Datacom and later was contracted to compromise the Nagra security system, which was still secure at the time despite News Datacom’s version for Directv, which was hacked less than 6 months after their operation. Echostar further alleges that News Corp. was instrumental and provided financing to distribute the Echostar hack widely through the United States and Canada via a closed dealer network involving a small army of individuals that are also involved in the suit. It is this security breach which the new Dish Network smart card will patch.
In 2002, Dish Network began negotiations for the next generation of smart card security from Nagravision, a division of the Kudelski Group, which provides the conditional access security for many satellite television companies worldwide. The new smart card is rumoured to be a variant of the Nagra 2 smart card that has been secure in Europe for some time.
Dish Network has already begun the transition to their new smart card platform, slowly shutting down popular subscription channel blocks to subscribers using the older version card. This strategy has been used for some time as it prompts legitimate subscribers to contact the satellite company to request a new card.
The security swap out will mark the first time since 1997 that all North American satellite television companies have been piracy free. Directv Inc, the leading U.S. satellite direct to home provider has had no piracy problem since Early 2004 when they fully adopted their new conditional access platform.
This caused a large transition of piracy from the Directv system to the Dish Network system, nearly doubling their piracy problem overnight. This further exploded when pirates found a way to modify legal free to air satellite receivers to tune into the Dish Network signal subscription free. This caused significant concern as the sale of free to air receivers were much more difficult to enforce than traditional piracy devices.
Bell Expressvu, the leading Canadian satellite provider, which uses the same equipment and security as the Dish Network system, also recently reported that they expect a card swap completion by July 1, 2005.
Once the Dish security swap is complete, this will mark the end of more than a decade of satellite piracy problems in North America, which began in early 1995, shortly after the Directv DBS service was first launched in the summer of 1994.
Analysts speculate that the new smart card upgrade will cause a sudden surge in subscriber numbers once complete as tens of thousands of former pirates open their wallets to fill the entertainment void. The strategy was certainly successful for Directv, who saw record new subscriber counts shortly after adopting aggressive new anti-piracy measures in 2002.
The North American DTH market is high competitive and expensive to service with each service still struggling to maintain profitability as new subscriber acquisition costs and the costs of new satellites and uplink centers weigh heavily on their bottom line. Dish Network now has more than 9 satellites in orbit, with Directv following close behind with eight. Additionally, each service is expected to launch up to 6 more in the coming years to service the growing high definition market, which requires a great satellite capacity than standard definition channels. The latest entrant to the DTH power struggle, VOOM, folded earlier this year, unable to attract any significant subscriber numbers. Echostar quickly picked the bones clean, snapping up the VOOM satellite, orbital slot and high definition programming produced by VOOM.
As operational costs soar, it is clear that to ensure the survival of DTH satellite broadcasters, every subscriber counts and the satellite broadcaster must stay a step ahead in the years to come to avoid a repeat of earlier costly mistakes.
Any Dish Network subscribers that have not yet received their new smart card in the mail are urged to contact Dish Network as soon as possible at 1.800.333.DISH to prevent a total loss of their subscription programming. New Dish Network receivers purchased since last summer, should already contain the new smart card, which is yellow in color in comparison to the older blue colored one.
©2005 Digital Insurrection