![]() ![]() “Consumer demand for retail CableCARD devices never developed as anticipated and such demand has declined steadily in recent years due to the growing popularity of ,” FCC commissioners said. Consumers have also shifted away from traditional cable TV service in recent years, opting for on-demand and linear streaming services like Neflix, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube TV and Sling TV, the FCC said. Since then, cable companies have been able to introduce their own set-top boxes that allow video subscribers to access live and on-demand programming through other means, the FCC noted on Friday. President Barack Obama revoked that requirement when he signed the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Act Reauthorization (STELAR) in 2014. To increase CableCARD adoption, the FCC created a new mandate that required all set-top boxes offered by cable companies use CableCARD technology after 2007. ![]() By the mid-2000s, only around 141,000 CableCARDs were in use by cable TV subscribers in the United States, according to data reported by cable companies and collected by the FCC. Though some TV set manufacturers did support CableCARD, it was often in expensive high-end models. In the 1990s, FCC commissioners assumed television set manufacturers would readily integrate CableCARD slots into their high definition-capable models. One reason CableCARDs didn’t take off is because few products came to market that supported it. That competition never materialized, FCC commissioners conceded on Friday, making the rule unnecessary. The requirement was imposed by the FCC in the late 1990s on the assumption that CableCARDs would lead to a thriving marketplace of third party cable boxes that generated competition for rented set-top boxes offered by cable companies. The Federal Communications Commission on Friday quietly dropped a rule that required cable television companies to provide specific digital decryption hardware when requested by customers.įor years, cable companies have been required to provide that hardware, known as a CableCARD, to video subscribers as an alternative to cable company-issued set-top boxes, which often came with antiquated software and rental fees.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |