Customer management and the Eurocypher conditional access system at British Satellite Broadcasting

British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) has been the first company in Europe to implement direct broadcasting by satellite, using a high powered signal from their Satellite Marcopolo 1. The authors examine BSB´s customer management system (CMS) and also BSB´s use of General Instrument´s Eurocypher Systems which provide conditional access to receivers in the UK. They concentrate on the CMS from the perspective of managing customers and the interface to Eurocypher Systems. They also examine the subscriber authorisation system (SAS), the programme control system (PCS), and the uplink encoder controller (UEC) in more detail