Where do I find the cable card on the Verizon site? I've gone to the store and looked through all of the accessories and no luck. I've searched for cable card and found posts about it, but no link to the device.
Cable Cards were an ill conceived idea mandated by the FCC in an attempt to create an open market for digital cable ready TVs and set-top-boxes. While the idea was good - find a way to allow people to buy their own equipment instead of renting it from the MSOs - the implementation wasn't.
It ended up increasing the cost of all set-top-boxes due to the extra chips, connectors and packaging required. The TVs and consumer set-top-boxes that made it to market didn't work as well as MSO provided boxes due to limitations in the cable card design. For example they couldn't do on-demand and the guide experience varied greatly. As a result, the number of cable cards actually ordered by consumers was very small. I think it was a few hundred thousand users across the entire country. The FCC eliminated the mandate for "separable security" years ago.
I think the only device you can still buy with cable card support are the TiVOs. No TVs have been sold with cable card slots in years.Since there was no market demand for cable cards, there is no replacement. If you have an old TV with a cable card slot you can use it if you're able to rent one from Verizon.
Or, you can rent another box. I recently added another box to my home and it was $6 more each month. You may find a cable card rental is only slightly less, and then you don't get on-demand, DVR access and so on.
If the old TV has a digital tuner, you can try plugging the cable directly into it. There are some channels that Verizon doesn't encrypt and your TV will be able to display. Channel numbers will be "funny" but it may work well enough for you.
Good Luck.
Cable cards are not very popular anymore. It doesn't surprise me that Verizon makes them hard to find. I suggest you reach out to Verizon via Chat to ask how to order one.
Something that has replaced them? Have a TV in our old family room that we don't use much anymore. Don't want to pay for the additional STB, alternative is a digital antenna and just live with what it picks up.
I'll give that a try. I'm paying $12/month for a set we rarely use. The way prices are going up here I'm looking to cut as many corners as possible. After their last rate increase I dropped down to the Preferred package. Still **bleep** that I have to pay for a landline that I don't have because they don't have a Tv/Internet option. Considering Xfinity when my contract runs out this year, they do have a Tv/Internet package.
