I believe all the Broadband services that bundle their stuff together have the ability. Oh, and my receiver has the ability to store data. When we went to straight cell phone and got rid of the land line, one receiver still had 2 pay per view movies on it that didn't get uploaded to the office. They're still there and I have never seen them on the bill. So satellite has the ability to store info but without the land line it has no way of reporting it.
True, a two-way continuous path is required. Your satellite receiver has the ability to store a few kB of data for pay services billing, but nowhere near the capacity to store viewer history. I use Dish Network,, and you can get into the diagnostics and setup menus and see the system RAM. In my receiver it is only 15 kB.
Interactive TV is just being rolled out, and THAT includes a two-way path (i.e. UVerse), which incorporates technology similiar to T3/dsl to transmit streaming (and stored) video (both ways), but this technology is just coming on line. Even with the capability, one would question WHY a provider would want that info on an ongoing basis. With systems like UVerse, they KNOW what you are watching, because only one (or two, depending on how many receivers are in use) data streams (channels) are sent to your receiver at a time. Far less bandwidth required to accomplish it this way than the old system of always having every channel available at the same time at the back of your TV receiver.
Digital cable, even bundled with VIOP and internet access uses a different system, which is rapidly being obsoleted by the interactive one.
This is an interesting subject, but it's off-topic for the thread......if someone wishes to continue we can start another thread.
doc