Are you a cable television subscriber? Then the era in which you could receive cable television without a decoder is definitely over.

The reason all of your TVs now need a box, even if you don't subscribe to any paid premium channels, is that your cable service has finally gone all-digital and may have implemented copy protection (scrambling) on most or all of the signal feeds coming into your home.

This change will not only affect what you need to receive your cable TV programming, but will also add additional costs to your monthly cable bill.

Although the FCC required most television stations to transition from analog to digital broadcasts by June 12, 2009, cable providers were not included in this deadline. However, since around 2012, cable services have implemented their own schedule to eliminate analog and unencrypted cable services.