Stop the “snowout”!
The U.S. DTV transition rules state that all full power analog television broadcasts
are to be permanently switched off on the same date in February 2009.
Some citizens may be left in the dark.
“Getting nothing but static,
getting nothing but
static
Static in my attic
from Channel Z”
–The B52’s
Gettin’ nothin’ but static
I say the best way to insure no citizen is left with only static is to leave some room for analog! At least delay the U.S. analog cutoff date until which time as everyone is taken care of, particularly our most vulnerable citizens! Some are predicting that many will in fact not be ready and that therefore the cutoff date will ultimately be delayed.
Here are some early televisions that will never again receive another over-the-air broadcast signal if the television spectrum is completely gutted of analog transmissions:
http://www.earlytelevision.org/
But it’s not nostalgia for early television receivers that is the impetus behind this site: it’s primarily concern for our elderly and disabled citizens. It’s small-town and rural retirees and nursing home residents. It’s the poor. It’s people who live in rugged hills or fringe areas who may currently put up with a certain amount of intermittent ghosting and analog noise who, when they get a taste of what digital interference looks like, will find it unwatchable! To a lesser extent, it’s people who have TVs in multiple rooms of the house, including bedrooms and kid’s rec rooms who don’t want to dangle wires and converter boxes all over the place, plus put up with the inconvenience of yet another remote control.
Am I some kind of Luddite? Not at all. I’ve subscribed to HDTV for years now via cable; all my analog sets are linked in via video/audio distribution cable to video splitter/amplifiers and the NTSC composite video output of my hidef cable converter box. I have multiple remote-control extenders. My house is wired for video and sound! I personally welcome DTV and won’t be the least impacted by the switchover. What I don’t welcome is the seemingly heavy-handed approach that’s being taken that will likely cause a lot of stress and difficulty for our more vulnerable seniors and others who don’t have anyone close by to help them.
Why, you may ask?
Why are we switching exclusively to DTV? From the FCC's DTV FAQ we’re given this answer:
“An important benefit of the switch to all-digital broadcasting is that it will free up parts of the valuable broadcast spectrum for public safety communications (such as police, fire departments, and rescue squads). Also, some of the spectrum will be auctioned to companies that will be able to provide consumers with more advanced wireless services (such as wireless broadband).
“Consumers also benefit because digital broadcasting allows stations to offer improved picture and sound quality, and digital is much more efficient than analog. For example, rather than being limited to providing one analog program, a broadcaster is able to offer a super sharp “high definition” (HD) digital program or multiple “standard definition” (SD) digital programs simultaneously through a process called “multicasting.” Multicasting allows broadcast stations to offer several channels of digital programming at the same time, using the same amount of spectrum required for one analog program. So, for example, while a station broadcasting in analog on channel 7 is only able to offer viewers one program, a station broadcasting in digital on channel 7 can offer viewers one digital program on channel 7-1, a second digital program on channel 7-2, a third digital program on channel 7-3, and so on. This means more programming choices for viewers. Further, DTV can provide interactive video and data services that are not possible with analog technology.”
First off, what we’re not told is that the spectrum being freed up for additional public safety communications bandwidth is only a small percentage of the channels being auctioned off. The post transition UHF band will consist of channels 14 thru 51, with the former channels 52 thru 69 being auctioned off to the highest bidder. The public safety portion consumes the space of approximately 4 TV channels, as shown by the following FCC band plan. There is also the issue of open access regarding the remainder of the public airwaves being auctioned off.
I think few would take issue with establishing additional public safety frequencies—or even additional open access digital services--but despite the relatively small size of the frequencies in question, the public safety aspect being sometimes held up (as in the DTV FAQ) as primary justification for taking away all other analog channels! I want to be generous and not say this is intentional deception, but it is of concern if people are basing their acquiescence in accepting the analog shutoff on misperceptions.
Refract this
As far as improved picture and sound quality, that may be true for many, but the opposite may likely be true for others. The transmitter power has to be increased 10 fold with digital to reach the same geographic area as analog. According to sources I’ve read, there will likely be severe reception problems in some rugged areas that will suffer from signal reflections at the increased power, areas where some minimal ghosting may be present now. Digital reception, unlike analog, does not gradually degrade—it’s sudden and complete loss of signal decoding whereby no image is recognizable (digital cliff effect). Some will be able to get around these issues using sophisticated techniques like high gain yagi antennas precisely set up to take advantage of topographical propagation phenomena such as knife edge refraction. See here for one such discussion. It helps to have a broadcast engineering background.
For others who need help choosing and positioning an antenna, there is antennaweb.org, sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association, which has a form where you input your street address or latitude/longitude/elevation and answer questions such as the number of stories to your dwelling unit and:
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Are there any buildings, steeples, towers, or other structures taller than four stories within four blocks of your location, airports within two miles of your location, and/or many nearby trees over 30 feet tall? |
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I’m not worried about the broadcast engineers, the technically savvy, and many of the people to whom it is asked “are you ready?” [for the switchover]. It’s the people who cannot afford to replace their television receivers or figure out a complicated converter box setup scheme or go up on the roof to install/reposition a specific class of outdoor antenna(s). Speaking of antenna configuration, who in the northern states is going to want to have to do that on a steep snowy roof in the middle of February? If you’re in a fringe area, it may best to get a rotor and install it this summer if your nearest broadcast stations aren’t going to broadcast a digital signal until February of 2009. Being a little off optimum azimuth may not be a show stopper for analog reception, just make for a slightly noisier picture. With digital, it could be a reception killer.
Getting a bit complicated
According to Consumer Reports’ brochure, Guide to Your Choices in the Digital Television Transition: “While the transition has some advantages, the bottom line is that many of us will have to pay money to keep perfectly good TVs working.” It’s more than money that’s at issue here, however.
How many elderly out there can barely operate their VCRs or DVD players to play a movie? Now add a converter box to the mix so you’ve got 3 external boxes hooked into one TV with all of the associated remotes? I can barely make that work myself with my collection of universal remotes; how could we expect some of our most elderly senior citizens who have never had more than a very simple menu-less TV, maybe with a simple remote, and who may be in some stage of Alzheimer’s, to figure it all out? The problem could be solved simply: leave some channels for analog, even if it’s only a few! Not just for low power stations in metro areas (as these are currently exempted), but also for rural stations where there is still a demand. This market should be consumer-driven, with a great deal of consideration for the groups I listed above. At the least, relax the cutoff date of February 19, 2009 for all full power stations nationwide. Allow extensions to this date on a local and regional case-by-case basis! I understand that Congress made no allowance for any extensions beyond that date nationwide. But such extensions, particularly in rural areas where there is no crowding of the airwaves, may be considered as discretionary operational decisions that perhaps Congress shouldn’t be micromanaging, but if it’s necessary then Congress would need to revise the rules.
Converter box magic?
I get the strong impression--both by talking to seniors and by reading some of the posts on the AARP website--that many people believe that a converter box entails just hooking up some sort of black box behind the set and that will be the end of it. This is incorrect, as the converter box is actually a full tuner portion of a TV, complete with channel up-down buttons and separate remote control. Its output must be sent to the TV via one of two ways:
1) via video cable (which requires the TV to be switched to video mode, which is not straightforward or convenient where that function is on a nested submenu in the on-screen menus (e.g. some Zenith’s), and where these sets forget the video setting when the set is switched off;
2) via RF modulated output (typically on channel 3 or 4) to the television set, which requires the TV to be switched to a particular channel (via a separate remote control, or, if using a standard universal remote, by some complex combination of button presses to switch control signals between devices and back)
I don’t think the FCC’s FAQ page attempts to prepare the elderly person who has not used such a device (as with a cable converter box) for what they are getting into. I won’t say it’s intentional deception again to omit this information (though, after seeing all the cheerleading going on, that thought had occurred to me), but neither will I say it’s being helpful. In some cases, the remote controls’ command sets overlap with each other--as with my Advent TV and Sony VCR, such that, for example, the video mode on the TV is inadvertently switched whenever I use the universal remote for a certain functions on the VCR. One workaround may be to separate the TV and converter box far enough apart so that you can aim the remote at one or the other (holding one’s palm out just to the front and one side of the remote control may further help direct the infrared beam so it only is received by one device at a time).
It’s clear to me that some elderly home-bound people, besides needing initial help to set up their converters, are going to get into situations where they will need some ongoing help due to the increased operational complexity and other issues that I’ve begun to list here. Who will provide that help? What are other countries that have made the complete switchover to digital TV broadcasting doing to address these issues?
Another item from the FCC’s website:
“Can I hook up more than one TV and video recorder to a single digital-to-analog converter box?
“You will need one digital-to-analog converter box for each TV set or other device (such as a VCR) that only has an analog tuner. The digital-to-analog converter box basically replaces the analog tuner in one piece of equipment. So if you want to use your analog TV and VCR at the same time (for example, to watch one program and record another simultaneously), you will need two digital-to-analog converter boxes.”
The first sentence isn’t precisely true. You can run the NTSC video output of the digital-to-analog converter box through a video splitter and run cabling to the remote TV if it has a composite video input jack. The complications here are that, if the remote TV is beyond a short distance away: 1) you will need balanced cable and associated electronics or a wireless transmitter for audio in order not to pick up AC hum, and 2) you will need an infrared remote extender system if you want to change channels from the location of the remote TV. Ask me for more information.
Again, I’d venture to say this isn’t something that many aged senior citizens are going to be able to pull off on their own.
Converter boxes visualized
Here is RCA’s (not yet shipping as of January 16, 2008) DTA800 converter box as pictured on amazon.com: I found it interesting that this device’s primary featured picture is with a rear view perspective, which I find unusual for a piece of electronics gear. Even the alternate picture (that you have to mouse over to expand) showing the front of the device shows the remote control placed adjacent to the TV set rather than the converter box, which might make the uninformed think that remote in the picture was the TV’s remote, which itself was not pictured. This kind of marketing, while I’m hesitant to assume is intentionally deceptive, nonetheless serves to further promote the “black box” misinformation that’s out there. One kind woman who I talked to today who works at the local cable company office also had that black-box perspective: that some device might be coming whereby all channels could be converted at once such that only the TV’s original remote control would be needed. I don’t fault her in the least; if I didn’t know more about electronics than I did, I would think the same thing.
The fact is, and someone immediately correct me if I’m wrong*, it’s too processor intensive to simultaneously decode and remodulate a whole slew of channels at once in a consumer device, so the external converter would only ever convert only one channel at once (maybe 2 for picture-in-picture). It actually would make sense for someone to design a dual tuner unit for the case in the FCC’s FAQ whereby someone wanted to record one channel while viewing another, such that the second channel could be selected with the same remote control, and that channel’s output would go to the VCR and so eliminate the need for two stacked converter boxes with two remote controls that produce identical IR signals. That means a remote, unless it can be programmed with an ID code to operate a single converter only, will simultaneously change channels on both converters! One workaround is to put black electrical tape over the IR sensor of the converter that’s attached to the VCR, so then you can channel surf without inadvertently changing the channel that you’re recording.
Less-than-universal remote controls
Another question is how existing universal remotes are going to work with converter boxes and DTV sets. I’m particularly interested in big-button remotes for the disabled. You can’t just leave disabled people in the lurch without any means to change channels from their bed or wheelchair. But, and someone please correct me here if I’ve got it wrong, it seems that may be exactly what will happen in many cases, as indicates the Wikipedia entry for digital TV:
“Some existing analog equipment will be less functional with the use of a converter box. For example, television remote controls will no longer be effective at changing channels, because that function will instead be handled by the converter box.”
A universal remote to control both the analog television and the converter box will always have increased setup and operational complexity over the dedicated remote for the TV alone. RCA’s remote for the DTA800 has 2 power buttons, one for the TV, one for the converter box. The TV power button obviously has to be programmed to work with the specific model of TV. This is another item in contrast to the official cheerleading that says how easy it will be for everyone to install a converter box. RCA isn’t of much more help: according to a website they set up, keepmytv.com, you can keep your TV in 3 easy steps: purchase a DTA800, connect, and turn on!
According to the NTIA, the government agency administering the coupon-eligible converter box (CECB) program:
“The remote control must be able to control all of the features of the CECB and come supplied with batteries. The CECB shall use remote control technology in common use so a consumer with a ‘programmable’ or ‘universal’ remote control (not required to be supplied with the CECB) will, at the least, be able to program a universal remote control to turn the CECB on and off and change the channels. Remote control codes commonly used in audio and video equipment are available from suppliers of universal or programmable remote controls.”
This sounds good in theory, that existing universal remotes should work with CECBs, but I see at least some possible problems in practice, besides the ones already mentioned:
1) the instruction manual for the existing universal remote isn’t going to conveniently list the converter box’s code as it wasn’t in existence at the time of printing
2) older universal remotes aren’t necessarily going to have a mode category for the CECB (Cable?, VCR?)
3) the NTIA doesn’t specify in the above quote that the volume up/down buttons must function on the universal remote when controlling the CECB, which means the viewer might have to juggle 2 remote controls, one to switch channels, the other to control volume
4) In the case of large-sized remotes for viewers with macular degeneration or other conditions, there are apparently issues with having even enough codes to support current devices, as one reviewer commented:
“This item is a piece of garbage. Its not good for seniors because it doesn’t work with many popular devices. It may have 296 codes but it is missing a lot of them, too many. This item is a waste of money.”
Cable TV to the rescue?
It’s easy to see how people might think they’re better off just getting cable TV, and it seems that’s just what the cable companies are counting on--and spending 200 million dollars on with an ad campaign subtly crafted to scare people into abandoning digital broadcast television:
One spot features an elderly, white-haired woman named Eunice Mixon, cited as a cable customer from Tifton, Ga. The ad opens showing a placard that reads: “By law, TV stations will end analog broadcasts on February 17, 2009, and broadcast exclusively in digital.”
Mixon then drawls, “Every TV set you have that’s hooked up to cable will still work just fine. If yours aren’t, just get on that Internet” — here she holds up a sign with www.dtvtransition.org and 888-DTV-2009, the toll-free number for information on the government’s DTV converter-box coupons — “and these nice folks will help you learn more.”
The Mixon spot concludes: “Cable’s digital pictures are brilliantly crispy, and they’ve taken care of all that 'transition stuff’ for us.”
[NCTA has since pulled the Mixon spot; watch NCTA’s current DTV spots]
How nice of them to take care of all that confusing “transition stuff” for us like that. “Every TV set that’s hooked up to cable will still work just fine”, according to Mixon’s script, but according to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin,
"If the cable companies had their way, you, your mother and father, or your next door neighbor could go to sleep one night after watching their favorite channel and wake up the next morning to a dark fuzzy screen."
One thing that some, but not all, cable companies are doing, is simultaneously translating a bunch of digital channels into analog, so that their customer’s TV remotes still do work with basic cable. But that may not last too long. The cable companies are currently only required to provide analog service until 2012, 3 years after the broadcast analog shutoff deadline. But that requirement, as it was pointed out to me (see comment section below), is a nullity, as it doesn’t require cable companies to provide analog on the incoming coax. Basically, if they include a channel 3/4 analog RF modulator in the converter box that they will rent you, as they would do anyway, that meets the requirement. So Martin’s statement is rather curious, as it is the FCC itself that is (see comments section again) “actively prodding cable companies to drop analog service.”
Bouncing off the satellites
While the cable industry may have been trying to scare consumers into purchasing cable TV services, a video description on YouTube suggests the FCC chairman is teaming up with Dish Network to scare consumers into purchasing satellite TV services:
Mr. Kevin Martin, Chairman of the Federal Communications
Commission, taped a misleading public service announcement for Dish Network
regarding America's transition to digital television (the "DTV
Transition"). In the PSA Martin suggests that TV viewers who rely on
over-the-air broadcast signals will need to switch to satellite or get a
converter box from the government.
Video providers should not be permitted to use the DTV transition to scare
consumers into purchasing their services. By agreeing to appear in this PSA,
Chairman Martin has encouraged this kind of opportunism. Even worse, he picked
a single provider of video services to champion -- wholly inappropriate for a
government agency.
Our government agencies should not be for sale. Let the FCC know that you do
not support the Chairman's motives at http://www.dtv.gov
or by phone at 1-888-CALL-FCC.
Threat to low power
According to the Community Broadcasters Association, DTV converter boxes are a threat to low power community television stations.
“Converter boxes that block our analog LPTV signals will confuse viewers and significantly decrease LPTV viewership,” says Ronald Bruno, newly elected CBA president. “Every time a person gets a coupon, buys a converter box and plugs it in we lose that viewer. Without an analog receiver in the converter box, our industry is facing a dire situation.”
Out of the 42 converter boxes that have been approved for the federal coupon program, only 4 have an “analog pass thru” feature: ECHOSTAR model TR-40, Philco models TB150HH9 and TB100HH9, Magnavox model TB-100MG9. What this means is that when the converter box is off, the antenna signal passes through to the TV so that the TV’s NTSC tuner can still tune in the low power stations. There isn’t a unified up/down channel selection system for digital and analog: you’ve got to switch between modes if you have a universal remote or use a different remote control for each mode if you don’t, which no doubt will cause difficulties for some viewers.
VCRs lose recording ability
Based on a question from an astute AARP member over in the forums, I did some research into finding out if people who went to the expense of replacing all of their relatively new analog TVs with all new shiny digital ones, which include built in ASTC (digital) tuners, would they still be able to record to any one of their VCRs without a converter box? The answer appears to be no. There are some televisions that have a composite video output jack that you can run to a VCRs composite video input jack. However these are only for the NTSC (analog) tuner, which is rendered useless after the analog cutoff. I’ve yet to come across an ASTC tuner television that has a composite video or S-video (or any video) output. For all the new large screen LCD televisions Target stocks today, the sales associate flipped through his specs chart for me: most have stereo audio outputs, but not a single model had a video output of any kind. What this means is that people will need a DTV converter box in order to record either to a VCR, to their computer, or any external recording device, as there’s no way to get to the output of the internal digital tuner of the TV. This is design limitation of these televisions; apparently television designers didn’t consider enough that this would be a worthwhile feature for people to have after the analog cutoff. Some converter boxes will have built in DVD recorders, but the government coupons will not apply towards the purchase price of these higher end models.
Analog TVs lose on-screen display
One over-the-air converter option (that I’ve been similarly using for a while now with my Motorola hi-def cable converter, which parallels the OTA use case) is to run the composite video output of a hi-def converter, such as the Samsung DTBH260F HDTV Terrestrial Receiver, to one or more analog TV’s. The problem with using my Motorola converter to view HD channels in this fashion is the same one as described here for the Samsung in a review on amazon.com:
“The Samsung will NOT show you any station information on the screen. When you select channels or set up the system using the remote control, you are flying blind unless you can infer your position in the channel sequence or on the menu. (These caveats apply only to analog TVs.) It's not as bad as it sounds, but it does take a little getting used to. You can, if you like, follow the somewhat cryptic advice of an earlier reviewer. Temporarily plug your yellow video composite cable from your TV into the green DTV OUT (component) jack in the Samsung. Slide the rear switch to Y,Pb,Pr. The menus will become visible over a black-and-white TV picture. After you complete your setup, plug the cable into the appropriate yellow jack. (If your TV has multiple video inputs, e.g. Aux1 and Aux2, or Composite plus S-Video, you can leave the B&W menus on one input and watch your shows on the other.”
I gather this omission was primarily about keeping the cost of the boxes down. To display channel information legibly to an analog set via the composite video output would have required a larger font than with the higher resolution component HD output, which would have meant more firmware programming on the box. Perhaps because NTSC-quality analog users are regarded a bit as second class citizens, it wasn’t considered worth the cost or trouble to either company to accommodate them. The federal government’s coupon program will not cover these hidef boxes (so if someone wanted to buy one thinking they might pick up, say, a used HD television without a digital tuner at some point in the future, they’d have to pay full price). As mentioned above, neither does the coupon program apply toward the purchase price of DTV converters (hidef or no) that may have built in recording capabilities, for simplified recording direct to DVD. If you want to make your life easier, you’re going to have to pay yourself!
Information, please
So, looking at these complexities I’ve listed here (and I’m still working on the list), and looking at the FCC’s educational materials I’ve seen to date, I see a good deal lacking. Certainly the FCC should be commended for reaching out to vulnerable and underrepresented groups. However, it’s not enough just to inform people that they’ve got to get something called a converter box for their existing analog TV(s) and that coupons are available to defray the cost. The devil is in the details, and I hope that, whether you agree with me on delaying the switchover and/or leaving a few analog channels alone to live on in lesser fidelity (like AM radio), that some of the information presented here was useful to some. Speaking of AM radio, can you imagine if they did the same thing with establishing an all-digital radio spectrum such that all of the AM and FM radios in existence stopped working without a converter box? I’m afraid that may be coming one day…in the gratefully distant future. (Or perhaps not so distant.)
Walking away
I’m going to try to distill and rank the above in order of importance:
1. The seriously ill/disabled/challenged must not be left in the dark. There should be no operational hurdles thrown in their way, as with forethought and concern there is no good justification for doing so! If someone needs one simple bedside remote control with big buttons, they should have one simple bedside remote control with big buttons! Assistive technologies need to always be moving forwards, certainly never backwards!
2. Our seniors should not be left in the dark.
3. No single one of us should be left in the dark…or should I say, “snow”.
What I’m getting at is that though DTV may be a wonderful thing, if the transition requires some to be left in the dark then maybe it’s not so wonderful after all. In Ursula Le Guin’s short story, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, a child had to be kept in darkness, cut off from the rest of society, as the price for everyone else in that otherwise utopian society to live in total comfort. Some choose to walk away from Omelas, as the title suggests, because they could not bear the thought that their comfort came at the expense of a single child having to suffer alone and in the darkness. As the Wikipedia article states, this story is frequently used in the critique of utilitarian theories of justice. Perhaps this is a bit strong of an allegory to use here, but I’ve tried to show there may be similar issues of utilitarianism to consider.
When there are few other sources of enjoyment
It’s not like television is the most important thing in the world. I don’t watch it much at all myself. But when you’re no longer able to hold a book to read and you’re parked in a nursing home somewhere in your bed or wheelchair a tiny room, television is, for much of your day, about your only lifeline and source of enjoyment. I hope when you, the reader, get to that point in your life, that you’re treated with more consideration and respect, in any aspect of your situation, than some of our elderly apparently are being treated in this situation. It appears that nursing home residents are even being excluded from the federal coupon program.
Obtaining help
There will no doubt be many stories of kindness about people helping other people with their setups or when they are having difficulties viewing channels. I know of one cable TV company employee who has gone way above and beyond the call of duty to help elderly customers who have had problems with, among other things, being able to navigate the brand-specific on-screen menus of their televisions that are hooked up to cable TV. “Bless your heart” was what I told her!
However, some companies who make money on services will no doubt charge at a steep hourly rate (ala Best Buy’s Geek Squad) to resolve problems. Any resources that may be available to offer help, free or not, are likely to be overwhelmed if the cutoff occurs as scheduled on a single day nationwide. FCC commissioner Michael Copps recently had this to say:
“Pulling the switch on stations all across the land at one and the same time in February 2009 is going to be a real throw of the dice. It is unfathomable to me that we are planning to turn off every analog signal in the country on a single day without running at least one test market first.”
Special needs
I mentioned big-button remotes. Another necessary feature for some converter box users will be close captioning. The following discussion is an ongoing comparison of close captioning implementations on various boxes, which shows significant variability in what people will be getting:
Evaluating Digital to Analog Converter Boxes for Users of Captioning
Further information
I put this together in a hurry--if someone has any link to indicate the contrary to any of my assumptions here, please forward it to me, and I’ll include it here! There are informative websites out there that, more comprehensively or technically or precisely than this one, attempt to educate people about what’s coming. Since these sites have been up in some cases for quite some time, and I have gained knowledge from them, I would be remiss if I did not give credit to each. I will attempt to list as many as I know about here, with more to follow:
http://dtvswitch.blogspot.com/
http://www.ceaconnectionsguide.com/
http://www.howstuffworks.com/dtv.htm
http://www.acb.org/washington/wc071015.html
http://broadcastengineering.com/webcast/dtv-standards/
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/
Stay tuned for updates…
-john (mail comments to john@workcreatively.org)
Corrections and comments
*“Regarding the feasibility of decoding many digital streams in parallel, it's definitely not easy, but check this out: http://www.broadlogic.com/tpix.htm”
“The 2012 requirement [to require cable companies to provide analog until 2012] can be satisfied by renting set top boxes, which cable companies already do. There is no requirement to put analog on the coax. So this regulation is a nullity: it doesn't force cable to do anything that they wouldn't voluntarily do.”
“Far from trying to preserve analog cable, the FCC is actively prodding cable companies to drop analog service. Some cable companies have been granted valuable regulatory relief (a waiver on the requirement to buy CableCard set top boxes) in exchange for a promise to terminate analog cable service by 2/2009. That's right: the FCC is rewarding cable companies that promise NOT to make analog cable available after the digital transition. See DA-07-2921A1.txt”
Update 1/31/08: According to ZDNet, open access rules are assured in the C block of the 700MHz spectrum with the 4.6 billion minimum bid being reached today.
Stop the snowout, © 2008