Could be Jan 20, could be Feb.
Could be March, April or Novemberor 2024.
Nothing is clear in the notice.
It is not closed-ended, but given that every previous notice I have ever gotten on plans of other things has also never been a closed-ended notice but said activity still occurred shortly thereafter, I put more stock in this than the previous letters I got on it back in the summer/early fall.
I’m still going take the same stance, though, of testing the waters because I can still do other means temporarily, if need be, so that if it ends up they hold off for awhile, I won’t be prematurely giving up TiVo and CableCARD/Tuning Adaper combo. If it does happen, like this notice is saying, then I’ll use alternate means for a few days to get one of their DVR’s put in, but I’m going to wait until I absolutely have to switch before I do.
As I write this, I decided to call technical support just to see what they would say about this letter since it has an actual “on or after” date in it.
The person I talked to seem pretty knowledgeable about this and he said this is happening, BUT (and take this “but” with caution of whether or not it is actually true) he said there is now still a way to keep using the CableCARD. He mentioned that the Tuning Adapter would get replaced with what he called a High Speed Converter. He said it would take the place of the Tuning Adapter and that I would keep my CableCARD with it staying paired to the TiVo.
This is the absolute first I have heard of any such thing, though, and I can’t find anything online about it. He said there are still a number of customers who have indicated they will not take any action until things stop working so either this is something very new or else a means of trying to hold out those customers in some way.
He did mention that this is supposed to overcome the problem CableCARDS will have with high-split coming where the internet will be upgraded to make the upstream speed match the downstream speed. From what he is saying it is supposed to act as a tuning adapter while alleviating the issue the higher frequencies will cause where the CableCARD likely won’t be able to hit that high, but it will still be a one-way configuration so still no VOD or interactive capabilities.
I tried calling a neighboring local cable company that services a neighboring county, and I also tried calling another of the big providers, similar to Spectrum, just to see if they had ever heard of any such device, and neither one said they had ever heard of a device called a High Speed Converter. Although technology differs at least some from provider to provider, I figured they might at least be familiar with that term or technology if it truly exists. Since they have never heard of it, I have no way, as of yet, to confirm if this device is actually a thing or not.
I’m still going to assume, for now, that the most likely scenario will be losing CableCARD, but if the representative is actually right on this, then TiVo on Spectrum might still be able to survive for the foreseeable future. The next time I am by the local office, here, I am going to go in and ask if they know about such device, and if so, if they have the device available over the counter.
