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Optimum is no longer supporting Cable Cards

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#122 ·
Optimum use to be great, for my area at least. have been a customer since 1999 but once Altice took over it slowly went down hill then last year or so it rapidly went down hill. i had to switch to the fiber at the end of last year and that has been a hot mess. i dread every i see an optimum car or truck in my neighborhood cause that usually means my service will drop for a few min to a few hours. When i still had my TiVo's active the CC would get knocked our requiring a call to support or what they call support now which is completely useless now. they just go to call centers overseas that don't even know how to follow a flow chart. i would spend hours on the call only to not have it working. I've dealt with CC's since they got them at optimum and had an easier time getting my S3 working for the first time, they have been actively making it impossible IMO. it has been a sad year with out my TiVo's made worse by the fact that the optimum TV eq has to be the worst devices i have ever used with terrible picture quality. I'm moving in a few weeks i think my new service is going to be xfinity so I'm hoping they will have CC support i think they do but haven't called yet, it does seem the end of CC support is near for a lot of companies thus an end of TiVo which is sad cause TiVo is so much better then anything offered by any cable company
 
#123 ·
razor237 said:
Optimum use to be great, for my area at least. have been a customer since 1999 but once Altice took over it slowly went down hill then last year or so it rapidly went down hill. i had to switch to the fiber at the end of last year and that has been a hot mess. i dread every i see an optimum car or truck in my neighborhood cause that usually means my service will drop for a few min to a few hours. When i still had my TiVo's active the CC would get knocked our requiring a call to support or what they call support now which is completely useless now. they just go to call centers overseas that don't even know how to follow a flow chart. i would spend hours on the call only to not have it working. I've dealt with CC's since they got them at optimum and had an easier time getting my S3 working for the first time, they have been actively making it impossible IMO. it has been a sad year with out my TiVo's made worse by the fact that the optimum TV eq has to be the worst devices i have ever used with terrible picture quality. I'm moving in a few weeks i think my new service is going to be xfinity so I'm hoping they will have CC support i think they do but haven't called yet, it does seem the end of CC support is near for a lot of companies thus an end of TiVo which is sad cause TiVo is so much better then anything offered by any cable company
Click to expand...
Xfinity will no longer give out cablecards to new or existing customers after Oct. 24.
 
#126 ·
Streemer said:
It does have everything to do with the make. Re-read from the top of the thread and see the letter and related news reports.
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No, it doesn’t matter with Optimum which is what that comment and this thread is about. They are ceasing ALL cablecard support. They will only offer IPTV delivery starting next month.

Spectrum is sending replacement cards to users with impacted PowerKey cards.

Comcast presumably (because they haven’t said so) is patching impacted PowerKey cards via a firmware update and replacing a SMALL number of older cards that were beyond fixing. Additionally, Comcast is no longer handing out any more cards to anyone after Oct. 24.

Fios allegedly (because they haven’t said so) is no longer allowing some/all (who knows?) new customers to sign up for plans including CableCards. It’s not clear if some/all (?) customers can signup and then later request a card as an additional/change in service. Also Fios sells different products and services region to region.

So card type is not a factor with all providers.
 
#127 ·
Streemer said:
It does have everything to do with the make. Re-read from the top of the thread and see the letter and related news reports.
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I received the letter. I spoke with Optimum and they confirmed the will no longer support cable cards. Period. I don't care what news reports say - I care what Optimum says.

I made the switch to their streaming boxes last week.
 
Discussion starter · #128 ·
ADG said:
I received the letter. I spoke with Optimum and they confirmed the will no longer support cable cards. Period. I don't care what news reports say - I care what Optimum says.

I made the switch to their streaming boxes last week.
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I have not received a letter, yet.
 
#129 ·
ADG said:
I received the letter. I spoke with Optimum and they confirmed the will no longer support cable cards. Period. I don't care what news reports say - I care what Optimum says.

I made the switch to their streaming boxes last week.
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Sadly, some people have spoken to Optimum and have been given different information. So it's not as simple as just listening to what Optimum says as most of them are either uninformed, incompetent, or both.

How has their streaming box been for you?
 
#131 ·
#132 ·
dougdingle said:
How is this a surprise to anyone who has been following the TiVo saga for a few decades?

TiVo and cable cards were shoved down the throats of the cable industry by the FCC in 2005 when 'utter lack of competition in the marketplace' was an issue with cable, and TiVo had lobbying muscle.

Cablecos had to stop billing that $200/yr to customers with TiVos for their trashy cable box and remote, wiping out $12 million or so in annual revenue (based on 60K TiVos in the system), AND they had to buy and supply cable cards (initially free or $1/mo) AND then later Tuning Adapters to people 90% of whom would have rented the cable box and remote if TiVos didn't exist. AND they had to set up a separate division of Level 2 techs to deal with cable card and TA issues (have to say, every single one of those I've had to deal with at Spectrum were VERY good at their jobs).

The FCC mandate was a blight on their bottom line, they made that clear to every employee, and they mostly hated it, hated the service call issues, hated that many if not most TiVo owners were just as inept technically as the rest of their users but used up far more resources as a result - they couldn't just come in and replace the cable box/remote, actually had to find and fix problems.

Once the lobbyists for cablecos convinced the FCC that streaming provided all the competition the public needed to offset cable's monopoly, and the FCC removed the provision that cablecos had to supply cards and service to competing devices like TiVo in December of 2015, the handwriting was on the wall.

The only surprise to me was that nine years later, many TiVo owners still have working cable cards when the cablecos could have legally ended supporting them at the end of 2015.
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Or, sane companies adopted the technology wholeheartedly for their own set-top boxes, reducing costs and providing customers a choice of equipment.

That's exactly what Verizon did, and to this day, they're - by far - the best supported CableCards. Since all of their STBs have one installed as well, so the infrastructure matters to them.
 
#135 ·
RE: Make vs "all cable card support" - bear in mind that Optimum has multiple service territories:

  1. Their original CT/NJ/NY service area - this used a combo of SA/NDS conditional access. When NDS ended support in 2021, they switched to SA PowerKey. These cablecards have gotten explicit letters.
  2. Suddenlink, which was TX/WV/OK/AR/LA but rebranded to Optimum. I can't speak to the conditional access in this service area.
  3. Some areas of NJ/PA which were service electric which is now Service Electric Cablevision. My understanding is these areas use Motorola CableCARDs and nobody has received a letter.
Optimum, in cost cutting under Altice, has terribly cut the quality of support (if they think you're part of a known outage, the phone tree won't let you speak to support, even if you have helpful information like the location of a downed cable, the robot just hangs up).

Point being, I would not trust the word of a customer service rep that "all CableCards are losing support".

If you have an SA/Cisco cablecard, I would expect letter or not, this is the end. If you have a Motorola - then I would not be sure.
 
Discussion starter · #136 ·
I live in Texas, I have a Motorola cable card. I have yet to receive a formal notification that Optimum is ending cable card support. I have found that the best mode to communicate with an agent is via messages in X.
 
#138 ·
sfsapp said:
I live in Texas, I have a Motorola cable card. I have yet to receive a formal notification that Optimum is ending cable card support. I have found that the best mode to communicate with an agent is via messages in X.
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Same story here in Louisiana. Waiting to see what happens. If their plan is to pull the plug on Motorola cards too, I'll be cancelling Optimum cable TV at a minimum.
 
Discussion starter · #139 ·
scb435 said:
Same story here in Louisiana. Waiting to see what happens. If their plan is to pull the plug on Motorola cards too, I'll be cancelling Optimum cable TV at a minimum.
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I will also cancel Optimum. I'm planning on using Direct TV Stream once I cut the cord.
 
#140 ·
Optimum aren't the only cable provider sending out letters about cable cards not working after October. Spectrum send out similar letters. I guess they used the same cable cards.
 
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