Commerce Chair Pushes for 2009 Digital TV

Rob Updegrove 6 Oct, 2005 at 8:52am ET Article published in Tech

US Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens is backing a cutoff of 2009 for the mandatory conversion to digital TV. Fortunately, his plan doesn’t leave out those who can’t afford to buy new televisions:

The government plans to auction most of the analog airwaves to commercial wireless providers, a sale that is expected to raise billions of dollars. Some airwaves would be set aside for public safety organizations.

Stevens and other lawmakers want to use some of that auction money to partially subsidize equipment to convert digital back into analog for those households that cannot afford to buy the expensive new sets.

“Our converter box program will attempt to ensure that consumers who cannot buy a digital television set will still be able to watch TV with a converter box,” Stevens said.

Source: Reuters

Comments

6 Oct 2005 ~ 2:36pm Gobbles all well and good but what gives the government the right to force things into the digital era. I know its better and all but were talking multi millions of people that cant afford to go digital. Unless they are selling those boxes for 10 bucks, fagetaboutit..
6 Oct 2005 ~ 2:54pm GHoosdum They run the FCC. And this 2009 business is a delay from the initial 2006 timeframe.
6 Oct 2005 ~ 6:53pm airbornflght i know. i was hopping for the '06 deadline. most of the downverter boxes will be available from your cable company like a cable box is now. i think they are what, like $3 a month. or i think you can buy one if you wanna
7 Oct 2005 ~ 9:56pm drasnor There's something seriously wrong with the proposal to subsidize non-adopters: I don't know where we got off thinking TV was a fundamental necessity. When radio first went on the air, only people that could afford radios owned them, and then only maybe one per household. Ditto for TVs in their inception. Did the government subsidize either of these technologies so everyone could afford them? No.

How about computers? I don't see the government subsidizing getting me a faster computer when it becomes obsolete every four years or so. They certainly aren't subsidizing my Internet connection since out in the boonies I'm still paying ridiculous sums (>$50/month) for a connection marginally better than dial-up (144kbps IDSL) and there's no competition in my area. I use my Internet connection nearly constantly and my TV only gets used maybe an hour a week. Clearly this resource is more deserving of government subsidies than that garbage that passes for network TV entertainment and news these days.

-drasnor