Cable Company and 3rd Part Cable Boxes

[csmsach]

I own two of my own boxes. 1x2224 and 1x2244. The area I am moving to Hagerstown, MD, which is serviced by Antietam Cable, says they do not allow any 3rd party receivers on their network. Is this legal if the boxes are compatible with their network under the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition Act of 1992? Or is their a newer law allowing them to lock down their network with only their equipment. Thanks

[cipher]

Well I can only speculate that it would all be in the cable service agreement that you sign when they install your service. It's in the fine print. What you can and cannot do is based on that agreement. The act only governs what the CC must adhere to when providing a service to a consumer market. e.g. They cannot charge fees for something you did not agree to etc, or they intensionally gave away service to force a competitor out of business etc.

[csmsach]

Let me rephrase my question. The law says that the CC has to allow the consumer to use privately owned "technically equivilant hardware". So how can the cable company tell me I can't use something that I know is compatible? I know it is compatible because the 2224 is the receiver they offered me when I initiallaly signed up.

[cipher]

What section are we referring to? The only thing I know they have to comply with is the Cable Ready (Cable Compatible) provision for televisions and VCR's.

[max]

csmsach,

I think you need to push harder when you call the cc and get to a manager or someone that is willing to work with you. It "is" legal to own your own box. You just have to get the right one, which sounds like you have, and then request the cc to provision it for you. Many of the reps you call at first don't know this or don't help for some reason but if you push for someone higher you should have success.

I live in Boston and had to call numerous times before I finally got to someone knowledgeable about what I was asking. She in turn gave me all sorts of helpful information as to what I need to do to own my own box and get cable legally. If you're intersted you can PM me and I will send you all of the information that she sent me.

Basically I told her that I was happy( not really ) to pay for cable but I did not want to continue paying 5. a month for the box rental. It was with that premise that she directed me on where to find a compatible box and how to have it provisioned by the CC.

That said, the only reason why I resorted to calling the CC at all was because I couldn't figure out how to make my USBBDM do what I needed it to do so that I get everything for free ( truth be known.. ).

I figured if I'm going to pay for cable i'll be damned if i'm going to continue to pay rent on the box too. Yes you can legitimately own your own. In Boston you can anyway.....Don't know about MD.

Good luck! max

[cipher]

The FCC mandates the following so I think you have a case with them.

Q: My cable operator tells me that now I have to use equipment which I didn't need
before, such as a converter box or a remote control, and they want to charge me for the
use of this equipment. Do I have to use their equipment and do I have to pay for it?

A: Cable operators may require their subscribers to use specific equipment, such as
converters, to receive the basic service tier. They may include a separate charge on your bill
to lease this equipment to you on a monthly basis. This monthly rate must be based on the
operator's actual costs of providing the equipment to you. Operators may also sell equipment
to you, with or without a service contract. If an operator provides a choice between selling
and leasing the equipment, the monthly leasing rate will be regulated but the sales price will
be unregulated. If an operator only sells equipment and does not also lease equipment, then
the sales price must be the actual cost of the equipment plus a reasonable profit, and any
service contract should be based on the estimated cost to service the equipment. If the
customer buys the equipment but does not purchase a service contract, the customer can be
charged for repairs and maintenance. Cable operators may not prevent customers from using
their own equipment if such equipment is technically compatible with the cable system.

[csmsach]

Thanks for the info. As you know when calling some people that work in tech support, most of them don't know anything about the service the company provides. So it is hard to get that one guy that knows what they are talking about. Hopefully I can get lucky

[max]

Well you're right. It really shouldn't be so hard. I guess they just make it discouraging for the simple fact that they don't want to lose the revenue all those rental boxes bring in.

Fact is though you can own your own box and if it is the same type they use and not one of their lost or stolen one's, which they can easily tell, then they should be willing to provision it for you if it's not fubard inside.

Call them back and ask them to turn it on for you.....keep trying....you'll get someone that knows what to do and where to point you.......

good luck.

[twistedps]

boston here also, did the same thing after they told me i needed to ay $5 for each extra box a month. fuq dat sheit.

[max]

boston here also, did the same thing after they told me i needed to ay $5 for each extra box a month. fuq dat sheit.

When you say "did the same thing" what exactly are your referring to? Just curious.

max

[csmsach]

After about a week of calling and getting no where with Antietam Cable about letting me use my own cable box. I finaly got ahold of the network engineer Mr. Davis. He notified me that using my own cable box is perfectly fine and they just need to get the numbers off of it. I asked him if I had to bring it into the office or just give the tech the numbers, he said I could do both. I cannot believe it took this long to get a simple answer about something so simple

[max]

That's good news that you got through Csmsach. Keep us posted as to how far you get and if in fact they do end up provisioning your box for you. I'm really curious about this one.......

thanks, max