The retail price for satellite receivers soon dropped, with some dishes costing as little as $2,000 by mid-1984. Dishes pointing to one satellite were even cheaper. Once a user paid for a dish, it was possible to receive even premium movie channels, raw feeds of news broadcasts or television stations from other areas. People in areas without local broadcast stations, and people in areas without cable television, could obtain good-quality reception with no monthly fees. Two open questions existed about this practice: whether the Communications Act of 1934 applied as a case of "unauthorized reception" by TVRO consumers; and to what it extent it was legal for a service provider to encrypt their signals in an effort to prevent its reception.