It's about time someone said something and it's no surprise that it was the Consumer Electronics Association who finally did. You see CableCARDs are the solution that the cable industry came up with to comply with the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which stated that consumers should be able to bring their own equipment to the cable party. We of course know that outside of
TiVo and a few other CableCARD DVRs like
Media Center, no one uses it. Well actually the entire cable industry uses it because the FCC mandated that after July of 2007, that every single newly deployed digital set-top had use a CableCARD instead of the integrated security. This mandate was supposed to encourage the cable industry to support 3rd party CableCARD host devices better, which obviously didn't happen. And so the CEA is doing whatever it can and nudging the FCC with a, "this isn't working, what's next?" What is supposed to be next is
tru2way, but we all know how that
it is going nowhere, and fast. The CEA says enough is enough, lets bring on downloadable conditional access (DAC) which would replace the whole card thing with a simple download. Of course this alone isn't enough to solve the problem, and until the cable industry agrees to give up complete control of the infrastructure and adopts a two-way standardized protocol like DCR+, no matter what the cable industry does, this entire cycle is just going to start all over again. But hey, it's a start, maybe in another 16 years we'll actually be able to watch HDTV without a set-top-box.
posted Sep 22nd 2009 1:04PM
Well, the cable industry has stonewalled CableCard, and once it got launched, they launched the really viable version Tru2Way which would actually provide service that most end users want.
Then before the cable companies are forced to support Tru2Way they are lobbying to cancel this program??? i am amazed and astonished at how gullible they think the FCC and public are.
This is about nothing more than the monthly revenues the cable co's want for receiver boxes, if those are lost, they expect to be able to charge monthly Cablecard fee's ... this is only about income. never mind how much these companies are forcing end users to pay extra for HD content.
Make Cable Co's support Tru2Way and make the cards available widely. Instead they make consumers push hard to get them. and even now the CableCards can't do PPV and other content, for that and VOD you need the forthcoming Tru2Way cards.
The problem isn't cable boxes as much as it is control. The cable industry wants to control the experience to ensure they don't get disenfranchised. When CableCARD came out, everyone knew that eventually a 2-way standard would be added, but the FCC refused to delay 1-way 3rd party host devices for a 2-way standard. CableLabs proposed tru2way as the new 2-way standard, and the CEA companies only signed on after they'd given up home for a truly open 2-way communication standard like DCR+.
So now that tru2way is proving as difficult to implement as the CE industry predicted, the CEA is staying on the FCC to ensure that when it fails, a new solution can emerge.
The picture should be much clearer in the next 6 to 12 months.
Hah, I'm watching digital cable with my CI+ tv right now (in Holland).
Screw Tru2Way and CableCards. Hopefully, the FCC will mandate Clear QAM for basic cable. That would eliminate the need for cable boxes for a majority of consumers and would make it easy for third party devices to get access to a wealth of content.
The FCC already requires that local broadcast over-the-air channels (i.e., "basic cable") is provided in-the-clear. You're complaining about a non-issue.
I've read about how clear QAM is mandated. That's nice-- all I know is that I don't get clear QAM in my area. I didn't / don't get unencrypted analog basic either. The problem is that there are so many exceptions to the rules that they almost don't matter. I'd rather have the FCC enforce the existing rules rather than make up something new. CableCard works pretty well-- let's just make it easier for consumers to get.
this would be nice but then they wouldn't be able to sell a "local" or "broadcast" package the wouldn't be a way to block the cable channels
People absolutely LOVE to bash the cable companies, but they happen NOT to be the culprits this time. They do indeed support CableCARD, and as many of my fellow TiVo owners can attest to, quite effectively. The FAILURE stems from the fact that consumer electronics manufacturers do NOT put CableCARD slots into every DVR and every television, and if you really want to know who to BLAME for that, it's the FCC.
The FCC did NOT place the requirement for separable security, which they placed on cable companies, also onto satellite services.
The FCC did NOT place any requirements on consumer electronics manufacturers to ensure that consumer electronics supported CableCARD.
The FCC did NOTHING to ensure that there would be any measure of cross-compatibility between host devices between different distribution platforms.
With these requirements, the FCC essentially left it up to CONSUMERS to motivate satellite services and consumer electronics manufacturers to contribute to the vision of customers being able to use their own host devices, and consumers did NOT do so.
So if you're going to complain, at least direct your complaints in the right direction. At the FCC for not putting in place regulations that actually would achieve the vision they outlined; at consumer electronics manufacturers for putting out equipment that won't work with federally-mandated separable security; at satellite services for basically weaving and dodging their way around providing any support for their customers using host devices of their own choosing.
Brian,
While I agree that satelite provider should've been included, I don't believe that the CE industry should be.
The fact is that just about every TV manufacture did make TVs with CableCARDs, and when none of their customers actually used the feature because the cable companies gave such half hearted support. And because of the fact that so many of the services cable customers pay for are not supported.
You show TiVo as an example of how CableCARDs can work, and while I agree, lets not forgot how much heartache most TiVo owners went through to get their CableCARDs installed. I've had a few installed and if we ever have a beer together I'll share all the horror stories with you. And even now the TiVo Community continues to struggle to get support for Tuning Adapters, and some operators have the nerve to charge $4/mo to rent the thing even know only 8 channels need it.
So yeah, while I also blame the FCC for all of this, up until now it is the cable industry that gave us this solution. If anything, I'm mad at the FCC for accepting it as a standard.
You have a funny definition of "support" when it comes to CableCARD. Some cablecos aren't terrible about getting you the cards; some are. My current cableco lied to me for the better part of 3 months, with excuse after excuse about how they couldn't/wouldn't provide CableCARDs to me for my TiVo.
Even now, getting phone support is a useless exercise. Any time the fact that I'm using CableCARDs comes up, they're instantly the scapegoat (they haven't been the actual cause of any problem yet, but that doesn't stop them from getting blamed). They do everything they can to avoid providing and supporting them, and their people are utterly uneducated about them. Every CableCARD install I've been party to, I had to tell the guy what to do, or do it myself, because they have *no idea* what to do. Literally, none. At best, they sit quietly by while I do everything (other than calling in the host and pairing IDs - because as a customer I'm too lowly to do that myself); at worst they sit by and moan about how you should just sell your TiVo and use their (crappy) box.
This doesn't fall in the category of "support" as far as I'm concerned. They could and should do better.
Took me about 5 months, 3 home visits, and about a half dozen calls to get my cable card situation good with my TiVo.
Yes, the cable companies support CableCARD. They do. That's undeniable. Surely, having the cable companies supporting CableCARD as they do is BETTER than the satellite providers NOT SUPPORTING any type of separable security, and is BETTER than the consumer electronics manufacturers shipping televisions that don't have CableCARD slots. You cannot HOPE to get what you say you want without fixing the satellite provider loophole, without fixing the problem with consumer electronics manufacturer shipping televisions that don't support what you want AT ALL. Again, you're complaints are misdirected.
Should the FCC have allowed CableCARD in its current form? Probably not. Unfortunately they made the judgment error of allowing the cable industry to decide what form it should take. They were collectively like "this is a stupid idea, we'll just throw this together, there's no way anyone will actually expect this to be implemented so who cares?" They were suddenly pretty surprised when the FCC turned around and said "now you get to implement this".
So I'm not arguing that it could have been done better, or there's not plenty of blame to go around for why it didn't. But the fact is, we've got what we've got at this point, and if the cable providers would stop acting like spoilt 5-year-olds who are being told to do something they don't feel like, and instead grow up and deal with the fact that "oh, well, we kinda made this mess, guess we better deal with it", it'd at least be better for customers than it is now.
I've read comments like these before, specifically from the cable industry's reports to the FCC on the state of cablecard integration. I specifically recall this circa 2006 when I was being told, constantly, that the problem was my CableCard-ready television. Sure enough, the cable industry's report to the FCC said that their investigations found some whoppingly high percentage of problems (something above 90%) were found to be caused by the customer's hardware. How self-fulfilling -- refuse to support CableCards in any meaningful way, tell the customers it's their hardware's fault, and then file a report to that effect to the FCC (all while demanding more and more delays to a decade-old separable security mandate). And here you are, claiming that all complaints are misdirected, going so far as to mention the unfairness (unfair to who? and why do you care?) of the situation as it relates to satellite companies. What?! How utterly irrelevant. How, exactly, is it DirecTV's fault that customers are getting crap support for their CableCard devices from Time Warner, Comcast, et al.? If DirecTV had to support cablecards, that would have magically made Time Warner *not* the crappiest support experience on earth? Riiiiiight.
Let's just cut to the chase -- which cable companies are you currently working for, or have worked for?
"Yes, the cable companies support CableCARD. They do. That's undeniable. Surely, having the cable companies supporting CableCARD as they do is BETTER...". Actually, it's quite deniable. If it wasn't for TiVo, I actually think I'd have never gotten my television working at all, because the TiVo users caused a critical mass that forced Time Warner to get their act together. Hardly "undeniable support". Also, supporting something half-heartedly in a manner that sabotages the success of something is, in fact, worse than not supporting it at all, from a customer standpoint. Wasting customers time and money is, in fact, worse than NOT doing that.
Sorry demon but even if they were acting like spoiled children that wouldn't matter much. They're are being forced to do what they're required to do, so how they "act" is noise, as compared to what I pointed out earlier, about the FCC, about satellite providers, about consumer electronics manufacturers. I don't understand how you can possibly justify focusing so much of your attention and ire at the cable companies who are, at worst, just being a little annoying, as compared to the real, substantial, serious barriers to what you want that are reflected in the actions of the FCC, satellite providers and consumer electronics manufacturers.
I'm focusing on the cable *providers* because even when there's a solution to provide me with the flexibility I want available in the industry at large, they go out of their way to make sure I can't use it, or when I can, I'm a red-headed stepchild who has to support himself because they can't be bothered to train their own people. Tru2way is yet another example of this - it's taking forever, and even then, the cable monopoly probably won't make it available right away for third party devices (and how long will that take? who knows!). Yes, satellite providers should also be subject, but at present I don't care so much about them.
I want what I'm supposed to be able to get right now, and what I should by all rights be able to get *right now*. The fact is, the cablecos often can't be bothered to do what they're supposed to. Saying that "other people haven't done right" doesn't lessen this fact. I have to echo CantankerousInHD here - which cable MSO do you work for exactly? You seem awfully anxious to defend them.
I don't work for any cable company nor have I ever. What I'm outlining for you is called REALITY; it doesn't require working for the company to understand and advocate for.
Let me ask you: Which consumer electronics manufacturer do you work for? Or do you work for some left-wing consumerist league?
Subscribers are getting what they're supposed to be able to get right now; you surely want more, and I understand that, but again your complaints are misdirected.
So you're saying expecting cable providers to provide CableCARDs to customers, as they ARE MANDATED TO DO by the FCC, and actually be able to usefully install/support them, is too large an expectation? (I'm not expecting them to support my TiVo, just their cards and my service through them.) Really? That sounds like a pretty anti-customer stance to me. I don't think expecting them to do what they're supposed to be required to do is onerous on my part. I shouldn't have to be submitting complaints to the FCC to get them to provide me with CableCARDs. This shouldn't be necessary. And yet it is. Why?
And no, I don't work for any CE manufacturer, or any sort of consumer advocacy group or anything else of the sort. I just happen to own a TiVo, and expect things to work, and for the cableco to do their job.
Brian:
Frankly, I've yet to meet or talk with any cablecard customer who talks about the problems with these issues (ie, cable, cablecards, and cablecard technology for TVs/DVRs) in terms of non-sequitor issues like satellite providers or the FCC (read: the cable industry's primary financial adversaries). I have, however, withstood several arguments from various cable representatives, employees, and contractors (who conveniently do not consider themselves cable employees in discussions like these) that sound identical to yours.
It may not take a cable employee to make that argument, but the argument is suspiciously full of illogical tactics that seemed designed to deflect criticism from cable operators (who are the ones responsible for incompetent technicians that can't transcribe pairing numbers, who frequently require costly technician visits for what is designed to be a consumer-installed module, and who are eager to give up when their initial incompetent attempts at "support", as you call it, fail). Instead, you would have us look to someone -- anyone -- else to level criticism at, regardless of how laughably illogical it is to criticize those others. It's directv's fault that time warner took 3 months to finally get my pairing information correct? it's the fcc's fault that time warner told me to just get another tv? who's fault is it that customer support is so bad that each and every support call in which i mention my cablecard also includes an eager sales offer to ditch my card and get a stb? and on top of that, you say that subscribers are getting what we're supposed to?! really, this is your idea of quality support from the cable industry? c'mon, that just doesn't make any sense.
Likewise, I'm not about to start complaining to the gas company when my electricity doesn't turn on the way it's supposed to, and I'm not going to complain to the government for requiring interoperability among the electrical grid for consumer electronics, despite the efforts of any electric companies.
I must agree that lack of competence, training etc. makes me detest Time Warner employees to such an extent that if I could FCC would receive a complaint about it almost weekly.
Myself being a TIVO owner, which I enjoy tremendously, makes me feel discriminated against just because I decided to look for a better solution to enjoy Entertainment at home. All issues brought up, by CantankerousInHD, demon and Brian have been experienced by me.
Lack of competence and care for customers happiness in general is revolting. Large companies such as Time Warner continue to expand reach of their tentacles while at the same time managing to suffocate customers and sucking life out of them.
Just recently I have moved from one part of Los Angeles to another and amount of hoops, phone calls, technician visits I had to go through would make you think I moved to the Moon.
I had to return my Cable Cards first, just so technician could come over and bring New (read same ones back), then while calling dispatcher, who was so rude to him, (she actually refused to help him register a cable box he brought in for separate room) that he had to call his supervisor in front of me and tell him that he was unable to finish job. After trying to call yet another dispatcher he finally managed to get it done but cable cards still weren't paired correctly so while basic cable worked, none of the other premium channels were coming through. Then there were 2 more visits, to get this problem resolved. Cable representative actually had audacity to tell me that after my 2nd visit (after which everything work just fine) they were doing SOME TESTING to their systems and that wiped all pairing info to everyone's TIVO's. So finally 3rd visit made it all GOOD.
So all my technician did is made me waste total of 6 hours, then called dispatch 4 times during those 3 visits and told them numbers of my TV screen, which could have been easily done by me. It would have taken me 10 min to do same.
Ok let's just move on. What we should do as customers is continue to complain to FCC anytime we encounter any issues with our cable providers. The louder we speak, and more of us there is, the more likely we will get a response from GOVERNMENT and FCC. I just don't want to wait 10 years till it actually happens.
Its because the Cable industry is so in the pockets of the politicians
Yet again, Verizon seems to be getting it right. There seems to be very few problems getting Verizon's CableCARDs to work with TiVo Series 3 and HD units. Indeed, when I had my installation, two out of the three cards "errored" within the technician's activation program on his laptop, but all three successfully decode channels and work properly. The tech had been trained on CableCARDs, but not TiVos specifically (he'd done several digital cable ready TVs, and was going to TiVo training next month, according to him), so he was eager to follow TiVo's printed instructions.
On the other hand, for each Time Warner installation I have been a part of, the technicians have needed to call several people, read the numbers off more than a few times and each complained bitterly about "all the hassle." One tech did follow the necessary TiVo steps, saying he'd done this "thousands of times" before, but still had to make four phone calls. I'm amazed at the vast gulf between these two video providers.
(Yes, my "sample size" is limited, but experience on TiVoCommunity.com seems to bear these experiences out.)
I find the rationalizations for misdirected anger at cable companies to be laughable. You'd think if something like this really upset people as much as they claim that they would recognize that the solution rests elsewhere -- that they're wrong about their appraisals. But no: Clearly some folks here are so hell bent on spanking their favored whipping boy.
Many/most people did not discover that CableCard solutions would not work as advertised until they had sunk many hundreds, sometimes thousands, of dollars into hardware and TiVo subscriptions. Silly us, we thought that if the cable company was required to support something & offered a service, they'd actually, you know, DO IT. Somehow that makes us wrong in our appraisals that the cable company did a bad job? What? And if that's frustrating to us, we just have an axe to grind? Uhhh, the more obvious answer here is that people are frustrated BECAUSE the cable industry sucks at this, not the other way around.
If I actually had the "whipping boy" bias about the cable company that you attribute to me, I'd have been so down on them that I'd have never gotten any cablecard-based equipment. Like your wild-ass claims about the satellite companies causing the cable industry to suck at cablecard support, this new claim also fails logic 101.
Your self-serving drivel is unimpressive. You're clearly trying to hard to hide from the fact that you're just frustrated and unhappy that you don't have as much personal power as you'd wish.
I actually have a lot of exposure to the CableCARD situation. Your assertions in that regard are utterly ludicrous. Most people had little trouble, and as time has gone on, it has become increasingly rare to have problems. You just want to try to make it sound worse than it is, in a vain attempt to defend your weak accusations.
Let me give you some advice: If you don't like cable, then drop it. Do without it. If you don't have the personal fortitude to do without something that is not essential to life, yet you insist on appraising it so viciously, then you have no credibility whatsoever. If you're not that weak-willed, then be a man, and choose between the offerings that are the reflection of SOCIETY'S principles for right and wrong (not a reflection of your own personal wants and frustrations), or doing without.
"I actually have a lot of exposure to the CableCARD situation." Is that exposure as a customer, or as something else? Care to elaborate? If it's as a customer, how exactly is it that you have any more credibility than any other customer? If it's as something else, then I think you have a painfully obvious conflict of interest.
Thanks for the advice. It wouldn't be the first time a Cable employee/contractor attempted to fire its customers.
The Cable industry is regulated by the government (the people) precisely because it received a competitive franchising and utility-providing advantage in the marketplace. In return, the cable industry has to play by some rules. Am I frustrated and unhappy that I don't have the "personal power" to actually make them follow the rules? Sure. I pay for a service, the government has granted authority to some body & regulated it to guarantee that the service I receive falls within some functional parameters (CableCARD in this case), and when it refuses to follow those regulations, that's annoying. Frustrating, if you will. That doesn't make me "not a man" -- it makes me a logical human being who doesn't like being screwed with.
Your proposed solution is to "be a man" and... give in to corporate interests that have behaved in an egregiously unethical way. Funny definition of manhood. Also, nice touch by claiming that an unhealthy marketplace (see: among the worst customer satisfaction rates of any industry) of limited competitors somehow represents "SOCIETY'S principles for right and wrong". Keep shouting against the wind. You sure do seem to have a winning recipe for convincing customers that they're not actually getting bad service -- how's that working out for the cable industry, anyway?
> Thanks for the advice. It wouldn't be the first time a Cable employee/contractor attempted to fire its customers.
I'm not nor have even been a cable company employee or contractor.
However, you are correct in your assertion that some customers are worth keeping and other customers are worth dumping. Where I think your perspective is badly distorted is in your assumption that you, as a customer, are worth far more than you really are.
> The Cable industry is regulated by the government (the people)
And the people have thereby imposed on them the requirement to provide limited basic cable at a very affordable price. THEY ARE.
Again your distorted view projects your own personal wants onto that of "the people". The people have spoken. They have outlined the requirements. Cable companies comply with those requirements. Your personal desires are WELL BEYOND what "the people" think is fair for you to expect. Your PERSONAL expectations are unreasonable.
> Am I frustrated and unhappy that I don't have the "personal power" to actually make them follow the rules? Sure.
Your appraisal is self-serving and erroneous. They do follow the rules. You want to the kowtow to your personal desires. There is a difference.
> Your proposed solution is to "be a man" and... give in to corporate interests that have behaved in an egregiously unethical way.
Bull. They've behaved appropriately. Your perspective is clearly distorted by your own personal perversion of what is required and what is reasonable to expect. You want you want you want and you don't care about what you actually truly are owed. You evidently simply assume that whatever you want must be the same as what they're required to do, and that's not reasonable.
I put my money where my mouth is. Digital Starter is now more expensive than it is worth to me. What am I doing? I'm downgrading my service. I'm exhibiting consumer responsibility. You're just whining.
You keep insisting that somehow, we as CableCARD using customers are expecting something unreasonable from the cable providers. How so? This is something the FCC has required them to do. I don't care if they *feel* like it or not; if you provide cable service in the US, you're subject to FCC regulation as far as what you can/must/will provide.
Honestly, I think I'm better for the cableco than the average customer - I don't call up with support calls about how to make my cable box go, or how to make my router work, or whatever else - I know how to make all the pieces work, and the only time I call them up is when there's a legitimate issue. However, instead of dealing with my legitimate issues, I get ignored.
How are they "following the rules"? If they're supposed to provide CableCARDs (oh wait, they are!), and they don't, or they go out of their way to make it unduly difficult to get them, install them, or operate them, how is that following the rules? Your logic here seems to be missing some, um, logic. The fact that I had to complain to the FCC, and the FCC *agreed* with me and told them "you will do as this customer says or we'll fine you", pretty clearly means I was not in the wrong. Yet you keep insisting that my, and other CableCARD using customers, are being unreasonable. So what is "reasonable" then?
@demon:
Apparently that was all in your head. In fact, cablecards work perfectly now, and cable companies provide them upon request & get them functioning quickly, with few issues. Brian says so -- he's got lots of non-specific "exposure" to cablecards, so he would know. Somehow. He's not saying. But it's definitely nothing to do with any employment related to the cable industry! No, this is all a mass delusion by people who hate the cable industry. The multiple articles online about the weeks it took to actually get cablecards activated in a DCT-equipped Dell XPS 420? Those are fake. Also, tivo forums don't exist. Also, pay no attention to avsforum. Also, the last-minute efforts and millions of dollars spent lobbying the FCC for exemptions to a decade-old law? Didn't happen. (Apparently, that's the definition of "doing exactly what they're supposed to"). Also, the cable tech who showed up with a STB at my house when it was time to install my cablecard, and then got mad at me when I didn't want it? He was a figment of my imagination, spurred by my irrational hatred of cable companies. If only I'd known it was all in my head! I'd have never spent over an hour trying to convince an imaginary being (and his supervisor) that I actually *did* want my cablecard installed, just as I requested -- four weeks ago -- as indicated on the work order. I certainly wouldn't have waited another 2 hours for this figment to actually go back to the office to get said cablecard. Nor would I have bothered with the following weeks of diagnosis, hung-up calls, and non-callbacks from cable technicians, if I'd have known it was really just my undiagnosed, weak, personal failings as a man that were at fault.
None of those things are actually real, apparently -- it's all just a bunch of whining from (less-than-optimally-profitable) customers who hate their cable companies and belligerently, pervertedly, insist on giving money to said cable companies with the ridiculous expectation that they will follow basic contract law and provide the service that they advertise on their promotional websites, within the established parameters of government regulations. What a bunch of whiners!
> Thanks for the advice. It wouldn't be the first time a Cable employee/contractor attempted to fire its customers.
I'm not nor have even been a cable company employee or contractor.
However, you are correct in your assertion that some customers are worth keeping and other customers are worth dumping. Where I think your perspective is badly distorted is in your assumption that you, as a customer, are worth far more than you really are.
> The Cable industry is regulated by the government (the people)
And the people have thereby imposed on them the requirement to provide limited basic cable at a very affordable price. THEY ARE.
Again your distorted view projects your own personal wants onto that of "the people". The people have spoken. They have outlined the requirements. Cable companies comply with those requirements. Your personal desires are WELL BEYOND what "the people" think is fair for you to expect. Your PERSONAL expectations are unreasonable.
> Am I frustrated and unhappy that I don't have the "personal power" to actually make them follow the rules? Sure.
Your appraisal is self-serving and erroneous. They do follow the rules. You want to the kowtow to your personal desires. There is a difference.
> Your proposed solution is to "be a man" and... give in to corporate interests that have behaved in an egregiously unethical way.
Bull. They've behaved appropriately. Your perspective is clearly distorted by your own personal perversion of what is required and what is reasonable to expect. You want you want you want and you don't care about what you actually truly are owed. You evidently simply assume that whatever you want must be the same as what they're required to do, and that's not reasonable.
I put my money where my mouth is. Digital Starter is now more expensive than it is worth to me. What am I doing? I'm downgrading my service. I'm exhibiting consumer responsibility. You're just whining.
> You keep insisting that somehow, we as CableCARD using customers are expecting something unreasonable
> from the cable providers. How so? This is something the FCC has required them to do.
And they're doing it. "You keep insisting" that they're not. You're wrong. It's as simple as that. They're not perfect, but they do an acceptable job at what they're required to do. You continue to try to make people think that they're not. Again, you're just plain wrong.
> Honestly, I think I'm better for the cableco than the average customer
Maybe you are; maybe you're not. I doubt you're in a position to know.
I'm insisting this based on my own experience with getting and installing CableCARDs with 3 different cable providers. Also, I have friends who also own HD TiVos, who have done the same, and have told me of their experiences. I think I have a wide enough base of experience to say that the cablecos aren't doing a very good job at this. When they demand that a tech has to come out for the install, yet the tech shows up and admits that they don't really know what to do, and can only stand aside and let you do it, I think that's a pretty clear sign that their people aren't being properly trained.
I have 4 cable cards and the problem with the technology is...
1) The cable companies act like they know nothing about them.
2) It's like pulling teeth to get one from your cable operator
3) They're ridiculously hard to configure. Why, I dunno, but they are. And for some reason it's forbidden to install a cable card yourself. My cable company required several visits to my house before they found units that worked in my equipment. And that didn't include the hours to days it took to program the cards after installation. I wouldn't recommend a cable card installation to my worst enemy.
4) If you have more than 2 they make it cost prohibitive, compared to 'renting' the cable company's equipment, plus you can't use on demand. And if the case of using them with Tivo HD, you can't scan for available channels being offered by your cable company and instead must add your channels manually. It's like the gift that keeps on giving.
Anyway, if it weren't for Tivo HD, I probably would have never used cable cards. I've tried practically every DVR at one time or another, and ended up coming back to Tivo. It's simply the best DVR out there. And I tollerated the cable card ordeal simply because I wanted to use Tivo HD and NOT have and extra box. Should I ever move on to something else, it's doubtful I'll ever do anything releated to cable cards again.
But anyway, it was a good idea on paper that got messed up in implementation and support. Cable companies really want nothing to do with the technology.