A Small Step Towards Reclaiming Spectrum
from the slowly,-but-surely dept
There's been a lot of talk among politicians about finally getting a real deadline in place to force the switch from analog TV to digital TV, but little actual movement for a variety of reasons. Hopefully, that's changing. The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee has approved a bill that would set the cutoff date as April 7, 2009, though, they voted down an amendment that would push it up to 2007. What's scary is that the politicians who voted this down made it clear that the no vote was simply an issue of money. They believe if they hold out on auctioning off the spectrum they reclaim until 2009, they'll raise more money for the government's coffers. Of course, the delay would also mean two years where that useful spectrum cannot be used for emergency wireless services or other kinds of commercial wireless services that could help boost the overall economy. It's a shortsighted decision -- and, so far, we've seen plenty of foot dragging on moving forward with the transition. Setting an early date, and sticking to it, would be a huge step forward. Of course, the other reason politicians are pushing it back is they don't want to upset constituents with the idea that their televisions won't work the day after the switch. There's a simple solution to this: allocate money to pay for TV upgrades. The amount needed would be tiny compared to what the government would get back in auction revenue and society would get back in terms of benefits from having that valuable wasted spectrum put to good use.
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Forced upgrade?
Even if it costed just a fraction of the price of the new set, like $50 because the rest is paid by the government, there would still be millions of people simply not interested. And even if that were a completely free proposition (you go to the local supermarket with your old TV and receive back a new one) there would still be millions who would not or could not bother: old people, little used sets in week-end cabins in the wood, or in little used guest rooms... the list of situations is endless, where people would just not bother with switching and would end up with a perfectly working and perfectly useless device.
And no, I don't believe it would cost little.
Any new service must be introduces without disrupting the old ones and clearly providing new and useful services.
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Re: Forced upgrade?
Take Englands terrestrial DTV offering Freeview, one simple box purchase (a basic settop box is available for 50 GBP, expect $50 for the US equivalent) and you also get many new channels not just the basic analogue 5. The only drawback is the SD resolution, but anyone who has seen it will agree that it's many times better than analogue.
If the US Government took a similar approach and make DTV both SD and HD (maybe make the SD spec ED), simplified the boardcast laws to increase the amount of national channels and set a real deadline they could have a chance of make a real product. Although some blame also falls into the manufacturers lap and I haven't seen a settop box that I would call reasonably priced for converting an analogue TV to a DTV if its only SD.
Without any obvious product benifit to average joe of course there is no interest.
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Re: Forced upgrade?
There are also an awful lot of stores where you walk in and they've got a bunch of squat 4:3 people waddling around in a 16:9 full screen.
Though I can easily see the difference between digital and my 13 inch TV-VCR, it's hard to justify spending more money just so I can hear the news and weather while getting ready to go to work.
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Re: Forced upgrade?
It has been my observation that sooner or later people will upgrade naturally, those who don't want to eventually end up dying anyway taking care of those problems.
The fact is, how do we know that after everyone is forced to switch, that something new won't come out in two years after that?! I'm tired of having to upgrade whatever I buy 6mos.-1yr. after purchase. So far, it has been voluntary, but forcing a switch is just wrong
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Re: Forced upgrade?
There are some very serious issues at stake. Basically, the TV networks are holding onto a ton of very very very useful spectrum that should be put to much better use. Forcing the switch is very important. This isn't about "something new" or trying to get people to something better or different. It's about trying to get that spectrum back and put it to better use.
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Re: Forced upgrade?
The government has been saying that this is coming since at least 1990. If you can't save up $50 over 5 years for a converter box, you've got some major financial issues and maybe should stop watching TV and get a better job.
I'm tired of the government coddling to the laziest and most ignorant. Our teachers are forced to teach to the dumbest in the class. Our cellular carriers are forced to keep analog service because some stupid person can afford $XX a month for service but can't afford the same amount for a new digital phone. And it looks like our government is caving again on the bandwidth issue.
No wonder our country is falling behind. Our government has lost its balls. It won't make the hard decision to make the people do what is best for them.
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Re: Forced upgrade?
Major Dork has it right on the nose.
You have no right to watch TV.
Lets cut out the hyperbole, switching a TV is not causing anyone any “pain”
If you cannot afford to switch, perhaps you should be watching less TV?
The reason why the US government has no balls to make the people do what is in their best interests, is because we have a democracy, and because people do not want what is best for them, they want what is easiest for them RIGHT NOW, and the people get to decide. The politician who forces something better on the people, is the politician who is looking for a job.
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What's the deal with the government pushing HD
90 - 95% of the population couldn't care less if their TV picture were sharper. I love watching TV and DVDs, but the picture on my existing analog TV is just beautiful. Sure Digital and HDTV look better (if you have a good source signal), but I'm not willing to pay thousands of dollars to upgrade all of the TVs in my house just so I can see the pores on Kelly Rippa's nose.
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Re: What's the deal with the government pushing HD
(1) They're not pushing towards HDTV, but *digital* TV, which is a different thing.
(2) It has nothing to do with picture quality and everything to do with spectrum. The TV broadcasters own a ridiculous amount of the available spectrum out there -- and they were given all of it for free. That spectrum could be used for many, many more important things -- such as better emergency communications systems. It would help a tremendous amount to have that spectrum back.
It has nothing to do with "sharpter images".
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Re: What's the deal with the government pushing HD
Also remember that the people most affected by the dropping of the analog over the air signal are also the ones that can't afford another device just to watch TV. If the government wants this to actually happen anytime soon, they'll have to subsidise converters for people. If they don't, that 2009 number will be just as fleeting as all of the other ones so far.
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Re: What's the deal with the government pushing HD
And, the plan is absolutely to subsidize the converters. The government is planning to spend somewhere around $3 billion to do so.
That $3 billion is absolutely worthwhile, given the value of the spectrum and the fact that it's being absolutely wasted right now.
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Re: What's the deal with the government pushing HD
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Re: What's the deal with the government pushing HD
HDTV vs SDTV is just the definition of the picture and has nothing to do with how the signal is received. So, you can have digital TV without having HDTV (or without cable or satellite). You *could* also have analog HDTV (Japan did it), but in the US, HDTV should all be digital.
So, assuming you got an HDTV and that you have cable or satellite, then this whole thing really doesn't impact you. It only impacts the folks who still watch TV over the air, getting the few channels that are available like that using rabbit ear antennas and such.
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