RSSThe DTV delay: Would this be the last?
By Angela Gunn | Published January 23, 2009, 8:57 PM
How much could you accomplish in 115 days? The DTV Delay Act, provisionally delaying the switchover to DTV, appears to have overcome GOP objections and is moving toward a full Senate vote sometime next week. The Act would push mandatory rollover back to June 12.
Reports state that Senate Republicans were concerned that television stations ready and eager to switch would be forced to delay their move; the revised Act says they're free to make the hop as they see fit, and the feds can thereupon take up the unused and discarded spectrum for public-safety communications, as has been the plan all along.
The coupon program will be extended to July 31, and customers whose coupons expired before they could be used will be allowed to get fresh coupons. The Act extends FCC auction authority to pay for the costs of the delay.
Sens. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX) worked together to whip the legislation into bipartisan-friendly shape. Rockefeller has been an outspoken critic of the timing and details of the changeover for years now; as the current chair of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, he's gone from being one of three lonely votes against changeover-related issues to leading the pack on how to make it right.
Happily, he thinks that delaying until June should just about cover things. In a statement on his Senate web site, Rockefeller wrote, "The DTV Delay Act will not fix all of the problems associated with the transition. More work needs to be done to ensure that consumers are aware of the transition and get the help they need. But it gives us all the time to do the transition right.... Barring unforeseen emergencies, we should not have another delay."
catering to those who dont care...that's the new American way! there will always be people either- 1- too busy 2- too ignorant 3- too stupid or 4-that plain don't care- about this issue, yet the gov't consistently pushes the deadline back to placate them.
who cares if this isnt a major issue in this economy right now...there's no real reason to push this back. the gov't was already out of coupons...how can they afford more???? i know! MORE DEFICIT SPENDING! the solution to all governmental money shortages...until now.
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|This simply is such a nonissue in face of an economy where 1/10 people are out of a job, and we're heading towards 1/9.
Who cares about DTV. The only thing DTV related would be to bring our troops home, reduce the population of the planet*, and bring economies back in order.
* - My personal little plug for overpopulation as a direct cause for all the world's problems. Hope you liked it.
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|Heh. Funny how we humans have been historically fond of implementing population control measures for just about every crowded species on the planet... except our own. :-)
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|This is a non-issue since really only a small minority still use over the air TV. This doesn't stop broadcasting a digital signal to the rest of us.
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|Nothing would make people switch quicker than to realize their TV's don't get the signal. That's what you have to do with ignorant or procrastinating people, force them to change. So worried about negative feedback, but no matter what they feedback will happen.
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|This won't be the last delay. Nobody wants to get rid of the fuzzy, distorted picture and static filled sound on their TV.
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|Well, there we go doing what we do best apparently... falling further and further behind the rest of the world.
The only thing we seem to do better than making large holes in other people's countries is catering to the masses' desire to procrastinate.
Bravo, appointed representatives! You never disappoint.
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