TiVo Petitions FCC to Ensure Consumer Access to Its DVR

TiVo has petitioned the Federal Communications Commission to guarantee that cable customers can continue to use retail set-top boxes with CableCARDs. That follows a court decision in which EchoStar won its challenge to FCC rules on the ability to record TV programming.

The issue was not CableCARDs, but it raised questions about cable obligations to support consumer access to the cards, says TiVo, which it wants the FCC to clear up since those CableCARDs also allow access to TiVo recording devices. "[C]ertain technical rules concerning the implementation of CableCARDs [conditional access rules] were contained in the same FCC order that the court struck down despite the fact that operator support for retail devices using CableCARDs was not the subject of the court challenge," said TiVo.