XM and the 396

[john smith]

Some posters have written that XM goes inactive if you haven't used it
in so many days.
How do they know when you use it? It is a one-way system!!!
You call to activate it and your receiver unlock code it included in the
downlink stream, correct?
Why would XM delete your unlock code from the downlink stream if you are
paying your subscription?

[Dan Luke]

"john smith" wrote:
> Some posters have written that XM goes inactive if you haven't used it
> in so many days.

It does.

> How do they know when you use it? It is a one-way system!!!

It happens in the receiver.

> You call to activate it and your receiver unlock code it included in
> the downlink stream, correct?

Yes.

> Why would XM delete your unlock code from the downlink stream if you
> are paying your subscription?

They don't. The activation is normally a one-time thing.

--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

[john smith]

Dan Luke wrote:
>>How do they know when you use it? It is a one-way system!!!

> It happens in the receiver.

Dan, are you saying it "times out"?

[AES]

In article >,
john smith > wrote:

> Some posters have written that XM goes inactive if you haven't used it
> in so many days.
> How do they know when you use it? It is a one-way system!!!
> You call to activate it and your receiver unlock code it included in the
> downlink stream, correct?
> Why would XM delete your unlock code from the downlink stream if you are
> paying your subscription?

Alt.radio.satellite is another place you could raise these questions.

It's unfortunately a pretty dumb group overall; you'll want to create a
filter that only allows XM-related messages through, and even then a
fair proportion of the messages will be junk.

But I don't know of any other group that's helpful for XM-related
technical questions (except maybe comp.dcom.telecom, which just
generally has a lot of technically savvy electronics types).

[Jonathan Goodish]

In article >,
john smith > wrote:

> Some posters have written that XM goes inactive if you haven't used it
> in so many days.
> How do they know when you use it? It is a one-way system!!!
> You call to activate it and your receiver unlock code it included in the
> downlink stream, correct?
> Why would XM delete your unlock code from the downlink stream if you are
> paying your subscription?


I'm not sure about the "inactivity timer," but why would you want to
continue to pay if you're not using it?

There have been activation issues unrelated to any inactivity timer, at
least when using the WxWorx receiver (which most portable XM weather
systems use.) The WxWorx receiver apparently "loses" the activation at
random, and you must re-activate. I haven't had a problem with mine,
and I haven't heard about it from others as much lately, so perhaps
WxWorx has fixed the problem. I understand that the real problem was
XM's method for the activation itself, and the receiver's ability to
retain that activation.



JKG

[Dan Luke]

"john smith" wrote:
>>>How do they know when you use it? It is a one-way system!!!
>
>> It happens in the receiver.
>
> Dan, are you saying it "times out"?

Yes. It happened to mine once only a week after a previous use, but
usually it takes more than a month of disuse before the service
authorizations are lost.
--
Dan
C172RG at BFM

[Nathan Young]

On Sun, 17 Jul 2005 13:34:32 -0500, "Dan Luke"
> wrote:

>
>"john smith" wrote:
>>>>How do they know when you use it? It is a one-way system!!!
>>
>>> It happens in the receiver.
>>
>> Dan, are you saying it "times out"?
>
>Yes. It happened to mine once only a week after a previous use, but
>usually it takes more than a month of disuse before the service
>authorizations are lost.

My experience as well...

-Nathan

[Maule Driver]

Jonathan Goodish wrote:
>
> I'm not sure about the "inactivity timer," but why would you want to
> continue to pay if you're not using it?
>
So it's ready for use when you do decide to use it.

[Jonathan Goodish]

In article >,
Maule Driver > wrote:
> > I'm not sure about the "inactivity timer," but why would you want to
> > continue to pay if you're not using it?
> >
> So it's ready for use when you do decide to use it.


You can call XM and have it re-activated over the phone. This isn't a
$10-$12/month subscription, in many cases folks are paying $50 for the
full weather service.



JKG

[Maule Driver]

Jonathan Goodish wrote:
> In article >,
> Maule Driver > wrote:
>
>>>I'm not sure about the "inactivity timer," but why would you want to
>>>continue to pay if you're not using it?
>>>
>>So it's ready for use when you do decide to use it.
>

> You can call XM and have it re-activated over the phone. This isn't a
> $10-$12/month subscription, in many cases folks are paying $50 for the
> full weather service.
>
The implication is that when they de-activate your account for non-use,
they stop charging you for it? A wonderful policy if that's the case
but surprising to this observer of corporate policies and practices.

[Peter Clark]

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 17:17:16 GMT, Maule Driver
> wrote:

>Jonathan Goodish wrote:
>> In article >,
>> Maule Driver > wrote:
>>
>>>>I'm not sure about the "inactivity timer," but why would you want to
>>>>continue to pay if you're not using it?
>>>>
>>>So it's ready for use when you do decide to use it.
>>
>
>> You can call XM and have it re-activated over the phone. This isn't a
>> $10-$12/month subscription, in many cases folks are paying $50 for the
>> full weather service.
>>
>The implication is that when they de-activate your account for non-use,
>they stop charging you for it? A wonderful policy if that's the case
>but surprising to this observer of corporate policies and practices.

I doubt it.

I suspect it's something similar to the DirecTV system. They send
down authorization packets for (youraccout/deviceid) every
(onceandawhile). The device receives the packet, updates the expire
date, is happy, and keeps working. If you don't use it in
(morethanonceandawhile) the authorization packet times out and you
have to either ask them to send a packet specifically for your device
to hear, or leave it on for (longenoughtogetanewpacket). They don't
stop charging you for the service because you decide not to use it (or
in the case of DirecTV, have the receiver unplugged) for a month.
Perhaps there is a 'seasonal suspend' feature they have available,
but I have no knowledge of that.

[Darrel Toepfer]

Peter Clark wrote:

> I suspect it's something similar to the DirecTV system. They send
> down authorization packets for (youraccout/deviceid) every
> (onceandawhile). The device receives the packet, updates the expire
> date, is happy, and keeps working. If you don't use it in
> (morethanonceandawhile) the authorization packet times out and you
> have to either ask them to send a packet specifically for your device
> to hear, or leave it on for (longenoughtogetanewpacket). They don't
> stop charging you for the service because you decide not to use it (or
> in the case of DirecTV, have the receiver unplugged) for a month.

DTV has an alternative connection through the telephone...

> Perhaps there is a 'seasonal suspend' feature they have available,
> but I have no knowledge of that.

They do, its called a "vacation"... Takes a phone call...

[Jose]

You can call XM and have it re-activated over the phone.

What if you're not near a phone when you discover that you need it and
it's not there? Or if "due to unusual call volume, there will be a
slight delay before our highly trained service representatives can get
to your call."?
--
Nothing takes longer than a shortcut.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Jonathan Goodish]

In article >,
Maule Driver > wrote:
> > You can call XM and have it re-activated over the phone. This isn't a
> > $10-$12/month subscription, in many cases folks are paying $50 for the
> > full weather service.
> >
> The implication is that when they de-activate your account for non-use,
> they stop charging you for it? A wonderful policy if that's the case
> but surprising to this observer of corporate policies and practices.


I don't know, but my point was that if you're not going to use it for an
extended period of time, why wouldn't you call and de-activate it so
that they stop billing you?



JKG

[Peter Clark]

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 13:18:01 -0500, Darrel Toepfer
> wrote:

>Peter Clark wrote:
>
>> I suspect it's something similar to the DirecTV system. They send
>> down authorization packets for (youraccout/deviceid) every
>> (onceandawhile). The device receives the packet, updates the expire
>> date, is happy, and keeps working. If you don't use it in
>> (morethanonceandawhile) the authorization packet times out and you
>> have to either ask them to send a packet specifically for your device
>> to hear, or leave it on for (longenoughtogetanewpacket). They don't
>> stop charging you for the service because you decide not to use it (or
>> in the case of DirecTV, have the receiver unplugged) for a month.
>
>DTV has an alternative connection through the telephone...

DirecTV's phone connection only sends Pay Per View usage data back to
their computer, it is not used for authorization or activation of the
receiver. One time I had the phone line connected in a spare room,
but accidentally disconnected the run to the multiswitch. When a
guest wanted to use it (god alone knows how long later) I had to call
DTV and have them hit the receiver, even though they showed that the
box dialed in as scheduled.

> > Perhaps there is a 'seasonal suspend' feature they have available,
> > but I have no knowledge of that.
>
>They do, its called a "vacation"... Takes a phone call...

How do they pro-rate? Do they limit the amount of times you can do
this? How about taking 'vacation' 3 weeks a month?

[Jonathan Goodish]

In article >,
Jose > wrote:
> What if you're not near a phone when you discover that you need it and
> it's not there? Or if "due to unusual call volume, there will be a
> slight delay before our highly trained service representatives can get
> to your call."?

Honestly, when is this ever going to be the case? The reasonable
assumption is that if you're going to go flying, you call and activate
it. If you know you aren't going to be flying for an extended period of
time (months), you deactivate it.

I believe that XM charges a $75 activation fee if you deactivate and
then re-activate, so you would have to determine your break-even point
based on the plan to which you subscribe.


JKG

[Gig 601XL Builder]

"Jonathan Goodish" > wrote in message
...
> In article >,
> Jose > wrote:
>> What if you're not near a phone when you discover that you need it and
>> it's not there? Or if "due to unusual call volume, there will be a
>> slight delay before our highly trained service representatives can get
>> to your call."?
>
> Honestly, when is this ever going to be the case? The reasonable
> assumption is that if you're going to go flying, you call and activate
> it. If you know you aren't going to be flying for an extended period of
> time (months), you deactivate it.
>
> I believe that XM charges a $75 activation fee if you deactivate and
> then re-activate, so you would have to determine your break-even point
> based on the plan to which you subscribe.
>


The issue isn't that they are turning it off to save you money. Your system
gets an "Account Active" packet from time to time from the satelite. XM has
no way of knowing if you received the packet so they can't stop charging
you.

There is really no way to know when your packet is going to come down the
stream. You might turn it on for a few minutes on Sunday night and then go
to the airport Monday morning and it not be working.

[Victor J. Osborne, Jr.]

A refund w/b nice but they're #1 and they know it. Customer service not
required.

I had major startup issues when getting my system up & running right after
they offered it. I "strongly" requested a credit for the time I was unable
to use the system b/c they had refresh issues (the toll free operator person
thought I had a 'radio'. He didn't know about the 'aviator' customer.)
When we finally got it all straightened out, they said they would consider
it. I never heard from them. A follow-up letter from me brought a canned
"we decline to issue the credit. Have a nice day."

They are starting out like Garmin is now.

--

Thx, {|;-)

Victor J. (Jim) Osborne, Jr.

"Maule Driver" > wrote in message
om...
> Jonathan Goodish wrote:
>> In article >,
>> Maule Driver > wrote:
>>
>>>>I'm not sure about the "inactivity timer," but why would you want to
>>>>continue to pay if you're not using it?
>>>>
>>>So it's ready for use when you do decide to use it.
>>
>
>> You can call XM and have it re-activated over the phone. This isn't a
>> $10-$12/month subscription, in many cases folks are paying $50 for the
>> full weather service.
>>
> The implication is that when they de-activate your account for non-use,
> they stop charging you for it? A wonderful policy if that's the case but
> surprising to this observer of corporate policies and practices.

[Victor J. Osborne, Jr.]

Re-activation is $50-75.

--

Thx, {|;-)

Victor J. (Jim) Osborne, Jr.
>
>
> I don't know, but my point was that if you're not going to use it for an
> extended period of time, why wouldn't you call and de-activate it so
> that they stop billing you?
>
>
>
> JKG

[Darrel Toepfer]

Peter Clark wrote:

> DirecTV's phone connection only sends Pay Per View usage data back to
> their computer, it is not used for authorization or activation of the
> receiver. One time I had the phone line connected in a spare room,
> but accidentally disconnected the run to the multiswitch. When a
> guest wanted to use it (god alone knows how long later) I had to call
> DTV and have them hit the receiver, even though they showed that the
> box dialed in as scheduled.

It sends viewer data back as well. Or earlier versions of it did...

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/customercare/CustCare_phoneline.dsp
"Get the most out of your entertainment experience by keeping your
DIRECTV® Receiver connected to a land-based phone-line.

How does staying connected help you?

It allows you to order pay per view movies and events with your remote
control and avoid phone-order assistance fees. You'll also be able to
order other special programming and products through your on-screen
guide such as Local Channels and DIRECTV — The Guide®.

Your sports subscription packages will be mirrored to the other DIRECTV
Receivers in your house.

You'll be able to upgrade to our advanced receivers such as the DIRECTV®
DVR.

You'll be plugged into our system for future interactive capabilities."

> How do they pro-rate? Do they limit the amount of times you can do
> this? How about taking 'vacation' 3 weeks a month?

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/get_directv/get_directv_havequestions_cost.dsp
"If you have additional questions, call us toll-free at 1-888-777-2454"

Used to be vacation billing info on the website, quick browse didn't
find anything. I'd suggest the newsgroups specifically for this item, if
you want to continue information gathering in this manner...

[Jose]

>>What if you're not near a phone when you discover that you need it and
>>> it's not there? Or if "due to unusual call volume, there will be a
>>> slight delay before our highly trained service representatives can get
>>> to your call."?
>
>
> Honestly, when is this ever going to be the case? The reasonable
> assumption is that if you're going to go flying, you call and activate
> it.

No, the reasonable assumption is that if you're paying for the service,
the service will be available. So you want to go flying today, you turn
on the XM weather. No dice. So you call to activate (assuming there's
a phone nearby, which isn't always the case). "Due to unusual call
volume we won't be able to help you until next March".

Imagine if the phone system were like that? "Your records indicate that
you haven't made any calls to Toledo this month, so your phone service
has been deactivated. Please call to reactivate."

Jose
--
Nothing takes longer than a shortcut.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Lakeview Bill]

A nickel is not a lot of money, but 20 million nickels is...

Think bandwidth. Think expensive satellite bandwidth.

I XM is interrogating the receivers on a periodic basis, it makes sense to
determine which receivers are not being used, and stop interrogating them.

This cuts bandwidth usage, and cuts costs.

(motion of hand shifting gears in an automobile)

When cable television first became available to me, I signed up for it,
along with HBO, the only movie package available at the time.

Then for several month, I would stay up until 3:00 or 4:00 every morning
watching HBO. I figured that since I was paying for it, I was going to get
as much use out of it as possible.

(motion of hand shifting gears in an automobile)

It would seem to me that if you are paying $29.95 or $49.95 per month for
satellite weather, you would want to turn it on at least once or twice a
month just to look at what you're paying for.

And then again, if you aren't using your satellite weather more than once
every couple of months, should you really be flying in conditions where you
would need satellite weather?





"Jose" > wrote in message
...
> >>What if you're not near a phone when you discover that you need it and
> >>> it's not there? Or if "due to unusual call volume, there will be a
> >>> slight delay before our highly trained service representatives can get
> >>> to your call."?
> >
> >
> > Honestly, when is this ever going to be the case? The reasonable
> > assumption is that if you're going to go flying, you call and activate
> > it.
>
> No, the reasonable assumption is that if you're paying for the service,
> the service will be available. So you want to go flying today, you turn
> on the XM weather. No dice. So you call to activate (assuming there's
> a phone nearby, which isn't always the case). "Due to unusual call
> volume we won't be able to help you until next March".
>
> Imagine if the phone system were like that? "Your records indicate that
> you haven't made any calls to Toledo this month, so your phone service
> has been deactivated. Please call to reactivate."
>
> Jose
> --
> Nothing takes longer than a shortcut.
> for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Peter Clark]

On Mon, 18 Jul 2005 14:05:02 -0500, Darrel Toepfer
> wrote:

>Peter Clark wrote:
>
>> DirecTV's phone connection only sends Pay Per View usage data back to
>> their computer, it is not used for authorization or activation of the
>> receiver. One time I had the phone line connected in a spare room,
>> but accidentally disconnected the run to the multiswitch. When a
>> guest wanted to use it (god alone knows how long later) I had to call
>> DTV and have them hit the receiver, even though they showed that the
>> box dialed in as scheduled.
>
>It sends viewer data back as well. Or earlier versions of it did...
>
>http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/customercare/CustCare_phoneline.dsp
>"Get the most out of your entertainment experience by keeping your
>DIRECTV® Receiver connected to a land-based phone-line.
>
>How does staying connected help you?
>
>It allows you to order pay per view movies and events with your remote
>control and avoid phone-order assistance fees. You'll also be able to
>order other special programming and products through your on-screen
>guide such as Local Channels and DIRECTV — The Guide®.
>
>Your sports subscription packages will be mirrored to the other DIRECTV
>Receivers in your house.
>
>You'll be able to upgrade to our advanced receivers such as the DIRECTV®
>DVR.
>
>You'll be plugged into our system for future interactive capabilities."

Interactive DTV was discontinued at least a year ago. And even that
didn't require the phone line to work unless you were using the B&N
onscreen bookstore. The rest of the information in the above link is
regarding PPV (including sports packages like NFL Sunday Ticket etc).
The basic point is regarding the authorization packet, and that does
not come through the phone connection, just from the datastream coming
through the dish. There is no alternate connection for them to
enable/disable the box - only the data through the dish can do that.

>http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/get_directv/get_directv_havequestions_cost.dsp
>"If you have additional questions, call us toll-free at 1-888-777-2454"

I was referring to the XM Weather subscription and that I didn't know
if it had a suspend option, not DTV. Sorry to not be clear.

[Jonathan Goodish]

In article >,
Jose > wrote:
> > Honestly, when is this ever going to be the case? The reasonable
> > assumption is that if you're going to go flying, you call and activate
> > it.
>
> No, the reasonable assumption is that if you're paying for the service,
> the service will be available. So you want to go flying today, you turn
> on the XM weather. No dice. So you call to activate (assuming there's
> a phone nearby, which isn't always the case). "Due to unusual call
> volume we won't be able to help you until next March".

XM WX is a subscription service, it isn't a pay-per-use service. Once
you have an active subscription, you are being billed for it on a
monthly basis whether you use it or not. That is the subject of my
statements.

The XM receiver activation issue is another one entirely. You can
reactivate the receiver over the phone or via the web if your receiver
loses activation, but that doesn't seem to be a big problem with newer
receivers.




JKG

[Jonathan Goodish]

In article <L_SCe.40379$DC2.8922@okepread01>,
"Gig 601XL Builder" <wr.giacona@coxDOTnet> wrote:
> > Honestly, when is this ever going to be the case? The reasonable
> > assumption is that if you're going to go flying, you call and activate
> > it. If you know you aren't going to be flying for an extended period of
> > time (months), you deactivate it.
> >
> > I believe that XM charges a $75 activation fee if you deactivate and
> > then re-activate, so you would have to determine your break-even point
> > based on the plan to which you subscribe.
> >
>
>
> The issue isn't that they are turning it off to save you money. Your system
> gets an "Account Active" packet from time to time from the satelite. XM has
> no way of knowing if you received the packet so they can't stop charging
> you.
>
> There is really no way to know when your packet is going to come down the
> stream. You might turn it on for a few minutes on Sunday night and then go
> to the airport Monday morning and it not be working.


My point is that if you know that you won't use the service for months,
why wouldn't you call to cancel it, and thus stop the monthly charges?
I never said anything about XM "turning off" anything.

I believe the receiver activation issues that some folks were having
were caused by the receiver losing the activation code. My
understanding is that the activation code is only sent when requested
from XM;it is not an automatic transmission as you suggest. If your
receiver loses the code, it becomes "deactivated" and you must call or
use the web site to tell XM to re-send the activation code.


JKG

[Jonathan Goodish]

In article >,
"Victor J. Osborne, Jr." > wrote:

> Re-activation is $50-75.

One month's worth of charges are $30-$50. If you go 3 months without
using it, you're certainly ahead to pay the reactivation fee.


JKG

[Jose]

> This cuts bandwidth usage, and cuts costs.

It's my money they are "saving", and they are putting it into their
pocket. There's a word for that, it begins with a beverage and ends
with the sense of mass.

Jose
--
Nothing takes longer than a shortcut.
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

[Gig 601XL Builder]

"Jonathan Goodish" > wrote in message
...
> In article <L_SCe.40379$DC2.8922@okepread01>,
> "Gig 601XL Builder" <wr.giacona@coxDOTnet> wrote:
>> > Honestly, when is this ever going to be the case? The reasonable
>> > assumption is that if you're going to go flying, you call and activate
>> > it. If you know you aren't going to be flying for an extended period
>> > of
>> > time (months), you deactivate it.
>> >
>> > I believe that XM charges a $75 activation fee if you deactivate and
>> > then re-activate, so you would have to determine your break-even point
>> > based on the plan to which you subscribe.
>> >
>>
>>
>> The issue isn't that they are turning it off to save you money. Your
>> system
>> gets an "Account Active" packet from time to time from the satelite. XM
>> has
>> no way of knowing if you received the packet so they can't stop charging
>> you.
>>
>> There is really no way to know when your packet is going to come down the
>> stream. You might turn it on for a few minutes on Sunday night and then
>> go
>> to the airport Monday morning and it not be working.
>
>
> My point is that if you know that you won't use the service for months,
> why wouldn't you call to cancel it, and thus stop the monthly charges?
> I never said anything about XM "turning off" anything.
>
> I believe the receiver activation issues that some folks were having
> were caused by the receiver losing the activation code. My
> understanding is that the activation code is only sent when requested
> from XM;it is not an automatic transmission as you suggest. If your
> receiver loses the code, it becomes "deactivated" and you must call or
> use the web site to tell XM to re-send the activation code.
>
>

I agree with you that if you aren't going to use the system for an extended
period of time the thing to do is turn off the service.

But if you use the XM regularly it will get the packet and keep on ticking.
I'd be willing to bet that if those that do get shut off pulled the plane
out of the hanger and turned the XM on and then left for a week when they
came back the XM would be working. (If the battery hasn't died.) But pilots
aren't known for paitence and in this case we're right to expect it to be
working when we turn it on if we paid for it.

Thier system and that of the sat/tv industry is based on the system being in
standby (thus being able to get the packet) even when you aren't using it.
Right now the system is is biased towards them getting paid. It doesn't work
unless it got the last packet. They need to change that around for the
aviation product so it works for X days weeks or years unless it gets a
cancel packet.

[Morgans]

"Jonathan Goodish" > wrote

> The XM receiver activation issue is another one entirely. You can
> reactivate the receiver over the phone or via the web if your receiver
> loses activation, but that doesn't seem to be a big problem with newer
> receivers.

I think someone has gotten it right, now.

This is a discussion without any current data points; just conjecture.

The unit keeps its activation, if it -stays on-, or at least -powered-. It
doesn't need a new activation code, if it didn't lose it in the first place.

Everyone, do this. *Wait* to continue this discussion, when someone first
has a problem losing activation, that has power on it, continuously. Until
then, the argument is moot.
--
Jim in NC