So I had another troubleshooting session with tech support on Sunday night when they called the house to see if my problem receiveing HBO and Cinemax was resolved. After a half hour, the young lady agreed to send a technician out with M Cards, since she thought the S Card could be the problem. Give this lady a raise!!
Anyway, a tech showed up yesterday and didn't know why he was there. He had no cards on the truck, so I knew this was a waste of time. He calls the depot and after his lead guy told him that CableCARDS were no longer supported, I knew it was time to see what my next move should be. He left my house and half hour later, I received a text saying my ticket was closed, though nothing was done. Some service!
This morning I went to the Verizon store and swapped the S Card from my Sony TV for an M Card. I called the activition line and after talking to a live person for 15 minutes, I now have my HBO and Cinemax channels back on the Sony. BTW, I tried the M Card on the Sharp TV and it would not even recognize that a card was plugged in, so it looks like only an S Card will work for that TV which is eight years old.
This tells me that lack of support for simulcrypt may not be the issue after all. The fact that an M Card works for the Sony TV which is seven years old, tells me that Verizon needs to figure out how to provision the other TV using S Card.
Why would the M Card work on the Sony TV but not the original S Card that had to be swapped out?
I now need to open another ticket to focus on just the Sharp which can only support an S Card.