The technicians, who worked for cable and satellite infrastructure provider MasTec in Orlando, Florida, told news station Local6 that they were pressured to tell customers "anything you have to" in order to get them to hook their receivers to phone lines.

Technician Frank Martinez told Local6 that he was ordered to "tell them if these phone lines are not connected, the receiver will blow up."

Technicians said that $5 was deducted from their paycheck for every receiver they installed without the phone line connection.

As a result of the May 1st report, the technicians were promptly fired from MasTec, and say they are pursuing legal action against their former company and DirecTV.

The DirecTV service doesn't require a phone connection to order pay-per-view movies or events, as that can be done via the company's Web site or over the phone.

So what does media mogul Rupert Murdoch's satellite service gain from the procedure?

Money, for starters. Each phone line connection could cost a customer as much as $52 per room, according to the Local6 report, and another $50 for a wireless phone jack.

Not only that, but the company collects data on transactions made through the phone lines for its own purposes. That could mean anything from targeted advertising, to selling the information to other subsidiaries of the Murdoch empire, or other businesses.

DirecTV partner TiVo came under fire in 2004 for collecting information on the shows its users recorded, and being able to track specific instances of rewinding or pausing a show.

Although TiVo clearly disclosed its practice and gave customers the ability to "opt out", users of DirecTV's TiVo service often had difficulty changing their recorder's settings to prevent the data being relayed back to the company, according to postings on customer forums.

The relationship between MasTec and DirecTV is equally cozy.

DirecTV is MasTec's biggest client, paying it more than $300 million in new installations in 2005. The company is a major player for both cable and telecom companies, providing them with the crucial "last-mile" connections for high-speed television and broadband services to customers' homes.

Bob Apple, current president of MasTec's "Energy Group" division, was formerly Senior Vice President of DirecTV, ironically focused on the "installation, warranty, and service businesses," according to his company bio.

MasTec has also has financial and investment troubles over the years. In April 2006, the company settled several lawsuits which claimed it had overstated its earnings and deceived shareholders.

These were just easy to find. My own experiences are not a valid description for a large national company but over and over in every state this crap continues.

Joe