Yesterday, the Federal Communications Commission granted waiver requests filed back in September by Evolution Broadband and Huawei Technologies for their low-cost, limited-capability set-top boxes.

The three-year waivers allow the boxes with digital terminal adapters (DTAs) to bypass the FCC’s integrated security mandate for including CableCards into set-top boxes that went into effect in July 2007. Set-top boxes with DTAs allow analog TVs to convert digital signals to analog, and cable operators such as Comcast have been using them as a more affordable means to convert to digital. The boxes also cost considerably less than ones equipped with CableCards.

Huawei, which has made inroads with its DTAs in North America, was granted waivers on its DC-730 and DC-732 set-top boxes, while Evolution added its DMS-2002 CA, DMS-1004-CA and DMS-2002-U set-top boxes to the two models that were granted waivers last year.

Technicolor (formerly Thomson), Cisco, Motorola and Pace were also granted waivers last year for their set-top boxes with DTAs.

In July, Evolution filed for a waiver on its low-cost HD set-top box (DMS-1004HD-CA) with the FCC, but so far it hasn’t been granted.

Evolution uses integrated security in its set-top boxes from vendor partner Conax.