It Is July 1st And Cable Companies Are Under Fcc Cablecard Mandate Starting Today.

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Today is July 1st 2007 and all cable companies nationwide are under FCC mandate to only deploy new Digital Cable boxes with a two way cable card slot. The only exceptions to this rule is for a few small cable companies that had waivers approved for a delayed deployment in a few months.
This is excellent news for the consumer. The consumer now has a choice and when subscribing to encrypted digital programming no longer needs to rent a two way Digital Cable box. Soon several brands and models of two way Digital Cable boxes with built in DVR’s will be sold at retail stores. When the consumer purchases a HDTV TV with Digital Cablecard slot built in or a Digital Cable box with DVR the consumer will save money on rental fees and will be able to purchase the cable box with the features and brand they want from several different companies thanks to this mandate.
Some cable companies charge a small fee to activate their two way fully functional cable card but in general the price is less then renting a Digital cable box from them. In 2-3 years two way QAM tuners with fully functional cable card slots might be a standard feature in just about every TV and video recordable device sold. Hopefully one day a satellite card will be made to allow consumers more choices in the satellite world.

** Important note: Currently all models of HDTV displays that have the cable card slot only have one way QAM tuners and do not support Video on Demand and interactive cable company program guides. This will change soon as new models start appearing on the market that support the new cable card which will turn the TV into a fully functional HDTV Digital Cable Box **

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This is a complicated issue this Cable Card slot with integrated security ban. The FCC has granted waivers to small cable companies and cable companies that are 100% digital or plan on being 100% digital by Feb 2009. It appears most or many cable companies are going to completely eliminate analog by Feb 2009 and consumers will either need to purchase a new TV with a QAM tuner or buy or rent a Digital cable box.

http://multichannel.com/article/CA6456714.html

When Feb 2009 hits there most likely will be a shortage of TV’s as consumers go purchase cheap 480I SDTV and HDTV TV’s with built in ATSC tuners and most will also have QAM also for Digital cable. With both the broadcasters and many cable systems going all digital several millions of digital set top boxes and new TV’s are going to be needed.