CableCARD is a plug-in car approximately the size of a credit card that allows consumers in the United States to view and record digital cable television channels on digital video recorders, personal computers and televisions without the use of other equipment such as a set top box (STB) provided by a cable television company. The card, provided by the local company for a nominal monthly fee, is a PCMCIA card and looks exactly like those used with laptops. In technical contexts, "CableCARD" refers more broadly to a set of technologies created by the United States cable television industry in response to requirements by federal government's Telecommunications Act of 1996 that cable companies allow non cable company provided devices to access their networks. Use of the term CableCARD can be confusing, because some technologies refer not to the physical card, but to a device ("Host") that uses the card. Some CableCARD technologies can be used with devices that have no physical CableCARDs.