Verizon cable card support discontinued

[jk]

I just received a notice from Verizon yesterday about cable cards no longer being supported and that they had tried to contact me multiple times to notify me (I have not received any notice from Verizon until yesterday). I have 4 Primes, several Flex 4K's connected to an antenna array connected to an REI BK808 routing switcher so any room in my home that has a TV in it (which is all of them except the bathroom, which is pre-wired, can watch whatever programming they want to (or set to the same source if watching a movie and I want to go to the kitchen to get something to eat, so I don't miss anything) and that is all history now. Ironically, Verizon, in their greed, will be getting less income from me because I won't be paying for 4 cable cards anymore. Carriers used to be required to provide cable cards, but I guess they paid off someone in Congress to make some changes. I guess all I can do is mod my router remote control to operate over WiFi, and live with watching the same programming from Verizon in all the rooms at the same time, or the local stations OTA, because I'm not going to reward them by getting any of their set-top boxes; I also have a library of several thousand Blurays and 4K discs to watch, and more on two servers, along with OTA, Apple TVs and Rokus, so I'm not going to miss them, and I'm switching my phones and ditching Verizon for something cheaper and less greedy i.e. almost everyone except Verizon, and I'll be working with our Condominium board to find an ISP with more reasonable group prices.

[greynolds]

We had received a series of vague notices (no specific date) letting us know that CableCard support was ending. We eventually received a notice with a specific date about 2 months ago. We had been paying for 3 CableCards. We dropped the Verizon FIOS TV service completely, but kept the 1G Internet and phone service.

When we canceled the TV service, we were told and double checked that the CableCards didn't need to be returned. Being skeptical of getting bad info, we held onto the CableCards rather than throwing them away or recycling them. Then several weeks later, we started getting "return your equipment or else we'll charge you up to $375 per item" emails that listed the 3 CableCards we had plus a 4th CableCard. We called and were assured we didn't have to return the CableCards and that the emails would stop. More emails. Called again and got an agent who appeared to have a bit more of a clue. She said the 4th CableCard was deactivated in 2014 , but the other 3 should be returned. I vaguely recall having a bad CableCard that had to be replaced, but have no recollection of if we returned it, kept it, were told to throw it away, etc. After returning the 3 CableCards we had in our possession, the emails seemed to stop. Until 2 days ago when another email arrived for that 4th CableCard. We obviously need to call again and make some noise at this point - this is getting to be ridiculous. They clearly don't need the CableCards back since they're eliminating support for them. At this point, it's very tempting to cancel our Verizon FIOS service completely and switch to something else, which would probably have to be Comcast, but that would just give us a different set of problems with a different greedy company...

[jk]

Thanks for the response Greynolds... My notice from Verizon, which I mentioned above, said that my equipment would be arriving in the next few days and had contact info to make an appointment for a tech to install it (which is probably totally unnecessary); I'm a retired NBC Network planning and installations engineer who can probably do the whole hardware installation myself to the point of doing the software configuration and testing routines. I got my Cable Cards for free from my Verizon store, have 2 in use and 10 more that are now worthless, there was no charge for them, just a limit on how many they would give you at a time. I did my final configuration with a guy (a Verizon employee) in India at 3am all on the up and up, no hacking.

The instructions I got with the new equipment said to take to UPS, throw it in the garbage, take to the dump, or whatever, they don't want it back, so I expect that they only requested the return of equipment until they had deployed enough to have confidence that their new hardware and software had a zero to low probability, or that the cost in time and money to dispose of the stuff wasn't worth getting it back. They did say that the Cable Cards were worthless now since they aren't using the same cards in the new ones, and I'm not even sure they're using cards at all in them.

I don't know if there is any use for my Primes now, if they work with other systems than Verizon, so anyone reading this who knows about this please let me know, I had throwing out perfectly good equipment. If not, I'll tear them down and see if there are any parts worth keeping.

I can't cancel my Verizon service because the fee is part of my Condo Association fee, and they won't un-bundle it from the Condo fee because if they did, when anyone left, their share would be spread among the rest of the people who remained. The more people that left, the more the Condo fee would go up. And this is not going to change, I got into a legal battle with the board, and it's not going to change. The board also ordered me to take down the OTA antennas on my balcony, when I refused, sending them a copy of the Federal Communications Act prohibiting them from forcing me to take them down, they backed off. This happened 3 years in a row, and on the 3rd time I contacted the FCC lawyers (who I'd contacted in the first two incidents) the attorneys notified them that if they pursued this endeavor, they would sue every member on the board that was party to signing their lawsuit. I learned a lot about FCC law in those three years. A lot of the things that Condo have in their rules are not legal by federal law, like installing antennas or dishes to condo's structure is permitted so long as it does threaten to weaken the structure, and there are a few others that are pretty much common sense (although I'll admit that sense is not always very common); and condo/townhouse/multi-dwelling industries' newsletters and magazines have glaring misrepresentations of what they can legally do. If in doubt call the FCC.

regards, jk

[greynolds]

I have my 3 SiliconDust HDHomerun Prime tuners listed on eBay. I did get an offer of $25 each for all 3 of them this morning, which is half my asking price. After taking another look at completed auctions, I'm not ready to let them go quite that low as a bunch of sold in the $45 ballpark recently and I've got the original boxes, etc. for mine. There is a bit of a market for them, but it's obviously a limited window of opportunity.

[jk]

Hmmm... I wonder why... maybe they don't know about Verizon's changes...do you know of any other ISPs that used this model? I wouldn't want to pawn them off on someone that I knew couldn't use them....

[greynolds]

Hmmm... I wonder why... maybe they don't know about Verizon's changes...do you know of any other ISPs that used this model? I wouldn't want to pawn them off on someone that I knew couldn't use them....

These tuners work with any ISP that uses CableCards, not just Verizon. I have no idea what the CableCard status is on other ISPs, but the people who are buying these tuners are highly likely to know exactly what they’re buying.

I most certainly have no intent to knowingly sell bricks to someone…

[PL1]

Hmmm... I wonder why... maybe they don't know about Verizon's changes...do you know of any other ISPs that used this model? I wouldn't want to pawn them off on someone that I knew couldn't use them....

Here is a list from TiVo, which also uses CableCARDs. https://tivoidp.tivo.com/tivoCommunityS ... uage=en_US

[jasonl]

I wouldn't put much stock in that list. Brighthouse, RCN, and Suddenlink no longer exist as separate entities and now operate under the Spectrum, Astound, and Optimum brands respectively.

[PL1]

Just pointing out that, plenty of cablecos besides Verizon use CableCARDs, if the OP is trying to sell theirs.

[greynolds]

Just pointing out that, plenty of cablecos besides Verizon use CableCARDs, if the OP is trying to sell theirs.

Yeah and FWIW, one of my 3 Primes sold on eBay last evening. Ultimately, it's on the buyer to know if their ISP does or does not support CableCard.

DirecTV Stream has been working out reasonably well so far, overall, but I would have been MUCH happier to just stick with the configuration I had.

Out of 4 AppleTV 4K's in the house, one of them isn't reliably showing a picture when playing something on the DirecTV Stream app - this is definitely the biggest issue we're running into. If I disconnect/reconnect the HDMI cable to force a handshake, it starts working, but stops as soon as I exit and go back into the app. It's the same model AppleTV 4K as the others, running the same version of the OS, same version of the DirecTV Stream app, the video settings are the same as another that works, the signal path is identical as another that works (and I have tried swapping the HDMI cables at the AppleTV end to send the "bad" one through the exact path that we know works), etc. I'm at a loss as to what the heck is wrong.

The other issue is that when we record Boston Bruins games that are broadcast in 4K, we can't watch them on one of the 1080P TV's. The app simply refuses to show the picture. Any other app with 4K support that we've tried works just fine and ultimately downscales the content to 1080P. We'll probably just end up replacing the remaining 1080P TV's with 4K TVs to resolve this since those TVs are pretty old at this point. But what a stupid issue since there's no option to record the 1080P version of the game, which means that anyone who only has a 1080P TV is out of luck.

[PL1]

DirecTV Stream has been working out reasonably well so far, overall, but I would have been MUCH happier to just stick with the configuration I had.

Sorry to hear about the Apple TV troubles. I have no experience with ATV. Many people say that using DTV's Gemini dongle makes the experience a lot like cable TV. You might look into buying that from DTV or maybe buying a used one on Ebay.

I've been watching the Bruins with the NESN360 app for $20/Mo., which leaves a LOT to be desired, but home games are in 4K. I also just signed up for YouTube TV's "Sports & News" package for $50/Mo. for 5 Months, then $72/Mo. It now includes ESPN Unlimited which means I am getting every game on ESPN+ along with TNT/TBS/USA. (I was planning on using Sling TV's Day pass for ESPN & TNT until I guess ESPN threatened to leave Sling.)

[greynolds]

DirecTV Stream has been working out reasonably well so far, overall, but I would have been MUCH happier to just stick with the configuration I had.

Sorry to hear about the Apple TV troubles. I have no experience with ATV. Many people say that using DTV's Gemini dongle makes the experience a lot like cable TV. You might look into buying that from DTV or maybe buying a used one on Ebay.

I've been watching the Bruins with the NESN360 app for $20/Mo., which leaves a LOT to be desired, but home games are in 4K. I also just signed up for YouTube TV's "Sports & News" package for $50/Mo. for 5 Months, then $72/Mo. It now includes ESPN Unlimited which means I am getting every game on ESPN+ along with TNT/TBS/USA. (I was planning on using Sling TV's Day pass for ESPN & TNT until I guess ESPN threatened to leave Sling.)

I've read mixed reviews of the Gemini boxes. The "a lot like cable TV" seems to mostly be that the remote has number keys for entering channel numbers - not really a big deal to me as most of the TV watching I do is of shows that are scheduled to record. The issues with using AppleTV are DirecTV Stream app specific as other apps, such as YouTube and Netflix, work flawlessly with a mix of 1080P and 4K content.

If YouTube TV included NESN, we probably would have gone with that option. But we really want to avoid paying $20 for NESN, $50 for something else, $30 for yet another thing, etc. and having to use 10 different apps, each with a different set of quirks, to get the content we want.

[PL1]

If YouTube TV included NESN, we probably would have gone with that option. But we really want to avoid paying $20 for NESN, $50 for something else, $30 for yet another thing, etc. and having to use 10 different apps, each with a different set of quirks, to get the content we want.

I realize you previously mentioned that, and I agree with you, but everything is going that way because a lot of people don't like paying for 100+ channels they never watch. And more providers are offering direct to consumer. I also dislike having multiple apps. They are all different and it is hard to remember who jumps forward 30 sec and who jumps back 10. And even within the same app, a recorded show has different controls from live TV. That's one reason I decided to go back to YTTV, so I could have one app for every channel except for NESN. If this option wasn't a significant savings, I would go with DTV since Fubo is out of the equation; it is missing TBS/TNT/USA. Another thing I'm finding is that it is hard to create a long term solution when multiple providers change packages and pricing without notice.

[KeithAbbott]

I also dislike having multiple apps. They are all different and it is hard to remember who jumps forward 30 sec and who jumps back 10. And even within the same app, a recorded show has different controls from live TV.

Not to mention the number of userids/passwords that need to be maintained. I have four televisions, and subscribe to eight different streaming services. So that's 32 userid/password instances that need to be maintained for those four televisions. Shirley there must be a better way...

[PL1]

Not to mention the number of userids/passwords that need to be maintained. I have four televisions, and subscribe to eight different streaming services. So that's 32 userid/password instances that need to be maintained for those four televisions. Shirley there must be a better way...

OMG, Yes!! Most of them let you enter a code from your TV to their web page, which can still be a pain if the TVs are in different rooms from your computer. The best are the apps like YTTV, where you can scan a QR code with your phone. The worst was a site that forced me to enter the UID/PW and I had a long PW to input into 3 TVs. Roku actually has an interesting method where the phone app is also a remote and you can paste the PW through the phone remote to your TV. I have a PW manager, so I could copy/paste it, but it is a little convoluted. But of all of the apps I've had to deal with, I feel like YTTV was the easiest. Scan a QR code and it recognizes your android phone. This might not work as smoothly with an Apple phone, but they still offer entering a code from the TV to the google website.

ETA: It would be SO GREAT if all of the apps had the same login procedure and some kind of agreed upon standard controls. Just dreaming!