Are all cable companies required to carry cable cards?

Idell Syed: As I understand it cable operators are required to support and supply Point of Deployment modules, aka CableCARDs, for POD-enabled customer premises equipment such as unidirectional digital cable products (UDCPs). The following quotes are from the Code of Federal Regulations, Title 47: Telecommunication, *PART 76 - Multichannel Video and Cable Television Service: “(b) No later than July 1, 2004, cable operators shall support unidirectional digital cable products, as defined in §15.123 of this chapter, through the provisioning of Point of Deployment modules (PODs) and services”“(3) Cable operators shall ensure, as to all digital cable systems, an adequate supply of PODs that comply with the standards specified in paragraph (b)(2) of this section to ensure convenient access to such PODs by customers. Without limiting the foregoing, cable operators may provide more advanced PODs (i.e., PODs that are based on successor standards to those specified in paragr! aph (b)(2) of this section) to customers whose unidirectional digital cable products are compatible with the more advanced PODs.”It’s also worth noting that CableCARDs (which have never been well-accepted by the cable television industry nor the consumer electronics industry,) are almost never used to provide subscriber access to “in-the-clear” must-carry and non-scrambled, unencrypted, digital cable TV content including basic service tier programming. To complicate matters somewhat (depending on your perspective,) the cable television industry is in the process of widely deploying interactive, bidirectional switched digital video (SDV) technology (similar to that used by IPTV providers,) which obviates the need for CableCARDs. Unfortunately this has led to problems with CableCARD-enabled customer premises equipment, specifically (multi-tuner) UDCPs, for example DVRs, from companies such as TiVo, Motorola, Scientific-Atlanta, et al. Fortunately a solution, albeit in! convenient, is available for USB-equipped UDCPs, and that is t! he use of a “Tuning Adapter.” (With respect to TiVo DVRs you will not only need a Tuning Adapter but you will also need to ensure that you are running software version 9.4 or later.) ######################## RESOURCES ######################## *Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (e-CFR)Title 47: TelecommunicationPART 76 - Multichannel Video and Cable Television Servicehttp://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ec... FCC fines cable for anticompetitive “switched digital video”http://arstechnica.com/old/content/2008/10/fcc-fin... OpenCable » CableCARD Primerhttp://www.opencable.com/primer/cablecard_primer.h... Digital Cable Ready (DCR) Equipment / CableCARDshttp://www.ncta.com/IssueBriefs/2711.aspx [PDF] Competition and Consumer Choice in the MVPD Marketplacehttp://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/house/pdf/108hr... David Broberg’s Technical Articles, Rants and Blog Entrieshttp://www.brobergfamily.com/david/techart.htm [PDF] Cable Television Consumer Prote! ction and Competition Act of 1992http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/OSEC/library/legislativ... Fact Sheet on Cable Carriage of Broadcast Stationshttp://www.fcc.gov/mb/facts/cblbdcst.html [PDF] Time to Rethink Set-Top Box Regulationhttp://www.ncta.com/DocumentBinary.aspx?id=485 Myths v. Realities about the FCC Integration Banhttp://www.ncta.com/PublicationType/MiscellaneousP... tru2wayhttp://www.tru2way.com/consumers/ Wikipedia: Switched Digital Videohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Switched_video Wikipedia: Tru2wayhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tru2way ________________________ Innovative Switched Digital Solution for One-Way Digital Cable Ready Deviceshttp://www.cablelabs.com/news/pr/2007/07_pr_dcr_de... How to install a Tuning Adapter for switched digital videohttp://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/13...  ...Show more