Are cable cards still mandated?

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We finally have a Charter competitor moving in providing gigabit fiber to the home and decent rates for cable, but they say they will not support cable card.

The TiVo web site states this "Federal law mandates that all major cable companies provide CableCARDs"

So is that the way the law reads? "Major?"
This is a local Telephone Coop corporation, so they are likely not "major" in size.

I also found this article that says Obama signed a law that dropped the Cable Card mandate:
Obama Signs CableCARD Death Warrant | Light Reading
and
House Votes to Kill CableCARD Mandate | Light Reading

I was really looking forward to telling Charter and their ever increasing prices to kiss my butt, but I cannot stand the thought of TV without my TiVo.

 

Well, I just saw this note at the bottom of one of those articles:
"This is a misunderstanding of the legislation. It does not eliminate the support or use of CableCARDS. The CableCARD rules were in effect long before the "integration ban" was adopted. STELAR ends the "integration ban" not CableCARD support. As you note, the theory was that by forcing the cable operators to include CableCARDs even in leased devices that didn't need or use them, that would somehow spur the retail market. It was a total flop. The only thing that happened is that consumers wound up paying more for those leased boxes without getting any benefit. That's the rule that was eliminated. The notion that CableCARDS were somehow a viable retail alternative ended long ago, not by law, but when DBS boxes were exempted and television set manufacturers saw no market for including CableCARDS in their sets. The CableCARD rules themselves, however, live on."

So it looks like it is a misinterpretation of the law by the articles author. That makes sense as I would have expected to see that news pop up all over the sites I frequent.


So my question is still the same, if Cable Cards are mandated, how is "major" defined?

 

Yeah, in looking into this further, I am finding exemtions based on small subscriber bases as well as delivery methodology. I bet they are an IPTV provider since they come over fiber optic cable.

 

Yeah, I have been happy with Charter, but my bill kept creeping up. When it hit $170 for Internet, basic+Expanded (NO PREMIUMS), I went in to cancel and they dropped me to $109. ButI am excited that they will have competition regardless. Now I can just threaten to switch and possibly get them to give me a better rate. However, we could not handle TV without our TiVo anymore.

 

I will have to look into that. I could certainly get by on such a thing I think. Especially getting to choose the 10 channels we want. Pretty sure the bulk of our watching is local, AMC, SciFi, BBC America and a few others.

 

Well, I found a link to an FCC notice and asked them to have a look at it and asked if they were exempt from it:
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-11-1373A1.pdf

Although I am 99% sure that they are exempt, they still need to know how to respond to this inquiry.
They will get the question again, I know at least 10 people in my area that use either TiVos or HDHomeRun devices with cable cards. I have both at my house.