Sorting Through the Analog to Digital TV Mess

H_Fisher writes "CNN offers an article from Fortune magazine, giving a look at the problems surrounding the mandatory switch from analog to digital TV in the U.S., now slated for 2009. 'Managing this transition -- which will render about 70 million TV sets obsolete -- will be not be easy,' Marc Gunther writes. Among the problems: millions of American households without cable or satellite access will lose free access to news and weather along with the rest of their broadcast fare. Uncle Sam's solution? 'Yes, the very same federal government that is cutting back on college loans and food stamps will soon be issuing TV vouchers' - $1.5 billion to help U.S. households buy new digital TV equipment."

Comments

Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[daveschroeder]

We bitch about and make light of all the delays going digital, and then we bitch when the government propose to help disadvantaged groups to maintain access to broadcast television, for whatever it's worth.

Let's not forget:

To be sure, the transition will facilitate a lot of progress for both the tech industry and the public sector. Once TV stations switch to digital transmission, they will return to the government a big chunk of the radio spectrum they currently use to transmit their analog channels.

Some of that spectrum will go to first responders -- police, fire and public safety officials -- so they can better communicate with one another. Breakdowns in emergency communication slowed the response to the September 11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina. New spectrum should help.

The rest of the spectrum will be auctioned off to the highest bidders -- probably tech companies. The sale of this valuable, scarce real estate is expected to bring in about $10 billion, maybe more. That will help reduce the federal budget deficit.

Better yet, when the spectrum is sold off, the companies that buy it will use it to develop new technology and services. Cheap, ubiquitous wireless broadband access is one possibility. Mobile TV or music services are others.

Scheduled for 2008, the auction will be the biggest spectrum sale since a 1994-95 spectrum auction. That sale helped boost the mobile phone industry, boosting the number of cell phone subscribers in the U.S. from 24 million to 200 million. It also helped drive down the cost of wireless minutes from an average of 47 cents a minute to 9 cents a minute, according to analysis from financial services firm Stifel Nicolaus.

"With the new auction, we will finally become a broadband nation," says Blair Levin, a Washington analyst with Stifel Nicolaus. "Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, Intel, Dell -- these companies will all benefit. The more broadband pipes you have, the more applications will come along, the more often you will upgrade your device."

Indeed, Microsoft, Intel, Dell, and Cisco all joined a Washington lobbying effort called the High Tech DTV Coalition to push for digital television. Congress has been debating the issue for a decade, ever since the 1996 telecom bill gave digital spectrum to broadcasters, with the expectation that they would eventually give their analog spectrum back.

Seems like $1.5B to smooth the transition is a good deal for all involved.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[_Sharp'r_]

You'd think on /. submitters would have some basic math skills.

"Yes, the very same federal government that is cutting back on college loans and food stamps will soon be issuing TV vouchers"

!"increasing as much as planned" != "cutting back"

Of course, it is a /. article, so I suppose we've come to expect at least one troll line in the article summary.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[daveschroeder]

Of course, it is a /. article, so I suppose we've come to expect at least one troll line in the article summary.

Yeah, I thought about pointing that out, too, but that quote was actually from the Fortune article itself. :-/ Take it up with the author, I guess...

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[voice_of_all_reason]

The rest of the spectrum will be auctioned off to the highest bidders -- probably tech companies. The sale of this valuable, scarce real estate is expected to bring in about $10 billion, maybe more. That will help reduce the federal budget deficit.

Wrong, because I guarantee that the above number is based on spectrum space now.

Spectrum space commands such a high price because it is limited right now. Open up the supply, with the same demand, and price goes down. This is economics 101.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[neomunk]

I'm really impressed that the appeal to Sept. 11th came in on the FIRST article. Slashdot should be proud to have the right wing spin machine view it with the importance that it receives.

Forget college, forget healthcare, we need radio bandwidth and tax cuts for the richest to help fight the terrorists.

Sickening.

80 years ago people were expected to read Shakespear in the 4th grade, now we (MAYBE) get into it by high school. We've been dumbed down folks, and if you don't think TV played a large part in that, well, you watch too much TV...

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[daveschroeder]

Spectrum space commands such a high price because it is limited right now. Open up the supply, with the same demand, and price goes down. This is economics 101.

Actually, the estimates on spectrum auction proceeds take this into account.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[Anarke_Incarnate]

Of course they will pay for new TVs. Bread and Circuses....Bread and Circuses. Besides, how else do you oil a propaganda machine and ensure it reaches the masses? You need to be able to get them all your message.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[fimbulvetr]

Except that a few 1.5B here and a few 1.5B here lead to us raising the debt limit:

http://today.reuters.com/News/newsArticle.aspx?typ e=politicsNews&storyID=2005-12-29T225501Z_01_KNE98 2458_RTRUKOC_0_US-ECONOMY-DEBTLIMIT.xml

I don't know about you, but I'm not a big fan of that.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[Guppy06]

"We bitch about and make light of all the delays going digital,"

"We" do? Personally, I'm still complaining about needing to switch to begin with. Between the government-mandated switch, the push for the broadcast flag, and now these new pork vouchers, I find nothing to be happy about with the entire process.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[daveschroeder]

LOL, I love slashdot. :-)

If we converted to digital and left the poorest of our nation out in the cold, we'd devolve into some discussion about how the evil government was depriving the weakest among us from access to a free press, possibly even with a few stats peppered in about how TV is even more important for them because of illiteracy rates, and so on, and maybe some good socialism arguments to boot.

But when we DO help them, it's, of course, a conspiracy to spread propaganda and keep everyone under their thumbs! (After all, network television is nothing more than a propaganda mouthpiece for the government!)

You guys are the best. ;-)

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[LlamaDragon]

Funny how quick people are to point out that funds are still increasing while ignoring the fact that the smaller-than-planned increases will still force cutbacks in education programs.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[deanj]

You cite a bad example, and comparing apples to oranges. The increases you saw in that tuition are due to the school raising their rates; they didn't go strictly by inflation. If you were spending that 13 years ago, you got a bargain. Twenty years ago (where I went to school) it was much more than that.

The original poster was correct. An increase in spending is an increase in spending. Not spending as much as someone wants to be spent is NOT a decrease in spending.... the amount of money being spent is still an increase.

It just sounds so much better to the people who don't pay attention, or worse, want to try and set the stage of an argument based on a lie.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[wuice]

Well, except that the "plan" is to increase it to keep pace with cost of living/inflation.. to not do so is to, in effect, cut the program. Those of you born with silver spoons in their mouths will never have to worry about it.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[jd142]

!"increasing as much as planned" != "cutting back"

Pretend the following:

Your job is to provide 1 apple to every student each day. It is 2005 and apples cost 50 cents. You have 200 students. The 2005 government budget has given you $100 dollars a day to do the job. You can do your job and have no problems. You serve 100% of the students.

The government forecasts that in 2006, apples will cost 60 cents and increases in enrollment will give you 220 students. Because it knows that these are just projections, the government projects a 2006 budget for you of $140 a day, 40% increase in budget, but you should be able to do your job with a little money to spare. You still serve 100% of the students.

When it comes time to actually pass the budget, the government gives you a budget of $125 a day budget, a 25% increase over this year's budget. However, government projections of prices and enrollments were on target. Apples now cost 60 cents and you have to provide apples for 220 students each day.

You can only purchase 208 applies, which means that 12 students are no longer covered.

Did your budget increase? Yes.
Did you cut back on the percentage of students you can serve and the services you offer? Yes.

Thus not increasing by as much as planned does equal cutting back.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[networkBoy]

I'm afraid you missed the point then.
These people are leaches on the system. It has nothing to do with who's being taxed. As the GP said, the top %5 pay the majority of the tax dollars already, both in total $$ and % of income. That the type of people you mentioned exist is a sad fact of human nature and the kama system hopefully will get them, but for each one of them there is a John Chambers (CEO, cisco) who lowered his pay (to $1.00 IIRC) to help the company save money and to up morale for his employees, there is a Craig Barret, who durring the downturn took a 75% pay hit because that is what was fair, and there are others just like them. These guys (and those like them) pay 40% of the federal government bankroll and are GoodPeople(tm).

[/rant]
-nB

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[myth24601]

Actually, if the free apples program costs $100/day then you would probibly be budgeted $500/day and would have to do the usual orgy of aquisition at the end of the year so that you can say you don't have enought money to do the job. You will probibly have at least twice as many employees working for you then you need too since in government, your status is judged by how many people you have.

Lets not even get into how you will frequently run out of apples while waiting for multiple competitive bids from apple suppliers. Then you must make sure that the apple supply contracts are handed to vendors in the proper legislative districts so you will have the votes you need.

special consideration to 'disadvantaged' apple suppliers

Invironmental impact studies

Gotta make sure you pay the fairtrade apple rate

and so on...

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[CokeBear]

Why are people getting free stuff with my tax dollars??

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[Yartrebo]

First off, you're probably just counting income tax. All poor people, even unemployed, pay sales tax. Almost all employed poor people pay social security taxes and a few other non-refundable taxes. Fees tend to be paid disproportionately by poor people because they're an equal dollar tax on everyone who uses the facility or lives in the state.

Second, the upper 1% control far more than 1% of the wealth or income. The only way to get the upper 1% to control only 1% of income is to have perfect equality. In practice, the number is more like the top 1% controlling around 50% of the wealth. Even under a flat tax, their fair tax burden would be around 50% of total taxes paid. Anything less is a regressive tax regime.

What happens is that the poor pay fairly high rates (probably around 20%-30% of income) because they are still responsible for the social security tax (11% or so once you include the employer portion), sales tax, tolls, and sin taxes (gasoline, cigarettes, alcohol). The middle class pay a similar amount, with a higher nominal rate being offset by fat mortgage deductions, better tax preparers, and far less sin taxes and tolls. Even without breaking any laws, rich people will pay less taxes because they essentially pay no sales, tolls, or sin taxes and they often shop around for lower tax countries to park their money. Capital is also favorably treated, and most of their income comes from capital.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[SilverspurG]

The myth is that, at the end of the day, you get just as much free stuff with their tax dollars. It doesn't really work out that way but that's the argument. One side claims "will of the people" and the other side claims "pyramid scheme". Look at the distribution of wealth and tell me which is more likely to fit the model.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[wx327]

If the top people are making 90% of the money, they should pay 90% of the taxes! This isn't happening. Why not? THAT is unfair.

That math would point to a flat tax rate, vs the progressive rates we have in place. Under the current system, if you are making 90% of all the income in the US, you are paying more than 90% of the total taxes collected.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[ScentCone]

you just want a reason to tell the people whose lives you're marginalizing that it's their fault you have their money.

Let's see. Say you have a married couple - perhaps two people who both work as professionals in IT or some other area that they had to go to school to tackle. Between them, they make $250k a year before taxes, working probably 70-80 hours a week each at least. Unlike the low-income people you're talking about (who pay NO taxes), these two people have a very large chunk of their income harvested from them. Do you really think that those people (who, if they live in the sort of large urban area that can pay them that sort of living, probably also have a $2800 monthly mortgage on a 40-year-old two bedroom townhouse) are taking poor people's money? Do you really think that they "have" the money that an 18 year old flipping burgers should have instead? How much should a burger cost, in order to pay... what, $20,000 more?... to each burger-flipper? And do you really think that someone who designs hospital buildings, researches gene therapies, leads an engineering consulting team, or creates art desired by a large following should pay $10 for a $3 burger for that purpose? And would you, what, use the federal government to make sure that no other burger joint gets to offer a slightly cheaper burger lest we disrupt the artificial cash flow to the burger flipping strata of society? Or how about we tax the professionals a lot, and don't tax the burger flippers at all? Oh, right, we already do that. And how did we manage, despite painful blows to the country's economy (oil delivery shocks from Katrina, etc) have more economic growth and lower unemployment than, say, more socialist-minded places like France or Germany? By reducing the tax burden on the people that take their money and invest it the businesses that hire people and grow the economy.

Just admit it. You think that anyone with enough drive and capacity to produce enough income to live in an OK townhouse and own two cars that they have to drive an hour and half each day to the job where they work 70 hours should be forced to support other people who don't. But people like that aren't "born into money," they produce something of value and thus make the money. You act like there's some pie of fixed size out there, and that the minute one person earns a dollar more than he did the day before, some other person is thus going to have to go without that same dollar. What a load of decades-old socialist mumbo-jumbo crap. The economies that are framed around that perception fail miserably (and usually violently).

Among the many people I know who are arguably upper-middle-class (I'm not one of them), none of them were "born wealthy." But they, and people like them, pay the lion's share of the taxes in this country, including property taxes. The lower middle class pays very little, and the poor people pay no income taxes... in fact, they get tax credits along with a zillion other entitlements funded mostly by hardworking professionals and their families. That you have to resort to embarassingly ridiculous citations of essentially fictional $10M birthday parties (those just happen all the time, I know) in your attempt to make upper middle class people feel like they're not paying enough taxes is just an indication of how wrong you know you are.

The solution to poverty isn't penalizing productive people even more, it's in making a future of poverty unattractive enough to kids (and their parents) to make them want to actually bother to complete a solid high school and at least a real vocational education. Taking newly created income from someone who just earned it and handing it over to someone who didn't does not change the cultural ruts that keep some families explaining to their kids that sticking with entry level jobs is not a career strategy.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[Surt]

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/TaxFacts/Tfdb/TFTem plate.cfm?DocID=221&Topic2id=20&Topic3id=22

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=20 50

While the Top 20% may pay 60% of the tax, they hold 80% of the wealth.
The bottom 50% hold less than 5%.

So maybe the tax burden on the top 20% should be a little higher, as they are currently being taxed at a low rate in proportion to their benefit.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[Arandir]

I completely agree. The only people bitching about the "delay" are the government and a few people who bought their HDTVs early. The poor certainly aren't complaining about this issue. The market is supplying HDTV in proportion to the demand, so what's the problem?

The reason people are bitching about the this subsidy is that while everyone has a different idea on the proper role of government, very few people have "supplying entertainment to the poor" in their list of legitimate government functions.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[Arandir]

You know, if we had a true flat tax, it would all work out. Do the math. A 10% tax on highest 80% of the income will collect four times the revenue as a 10% tax on the lowest 20% of income. Of course, that's income. The wealthiest people don't have incomes, they have investments. Which is why people keep imagining these disparities.

We need to stop trying to make things "fair". Instead of punishing the rich for being rich, maybe we should think about helping the poor. Instead of raising the taxes on the high end, why not lower the taxes on the low end? Increase the standard deduction?

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[_Sharp'r_]

Now try and apply that to the reality of the changes in the student loan program and you'll see that your example has absolutely no relation to reality.

The per student amount of loans available was raised considerably. The artifically low interest rates subsidized by the government were allowed to rise a couple percent, but with the benefit of becoming fixed instead of variable. Interest rates in the US have been rising recently, you might also note.

Any student who is currently eligible for a student loan would still be eligible after the changes and could actually get a bigger loan to deal with inflation. What's going on is that down the road when they go to pay it off, they'll have to pay more for the loans they took out, thus saving the taxpayers some money over the next 5 years.

So how does that scenario reduce the availability of student loans for students again? Answer, it doesn't, it just affects the eventual payback by the now working professional.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[atomic_toaster]

If we converted to digital and left the poorest of our nation out in the cold, we'd devolve into some discussion about how the evil government was depriving the weakest among us from access to a free press, possibly even with a few stats peppered in about how TV is even more important for them because of illiteracy rates, and so on, and maybe some good socialism arguments to boot.

I see your point about damned if you do/dont, but that aside... The whole thing here is that nobody needs television. It's a privilege, not a right. And even if it was a right, who's stopping all of these poor, illterate, TV-starved people from going to a library (which the government already funds), which has *gasp* free books, movies, and often has screening rooms or free screenings. Even if all poor people were illiterate (which doesn't happen that much in the States, face it), that still leaves the other options open. Oh yes, and libraries provide warmth, shelter, and bathroom facilities as well, so even the homeless could use them without being "left in the cold".

Come on, government, put that $1.5 billion into the nation's libraries, not into upgrading peoples' ancient televisions!

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[AK Marc]

Just admit it. You think that anyone with enough drive and capacity to produce enough income to live in an OK townhouse and own two cars that they have to drive an hour and half each day to the job where they work 70 hours should be forced to support other people who don't.

Insightful? How could this utter crap be modded insightful? Incite-full would be more like it. Oh, and wrong, too. I'm in the upper middle class you talk about. I have a house, a couple cars, and all that. I pay less than 20% in direct taxes. Yes, when you add up federal income tax, medicare, social security, state income/sales tax, local sales/property tax, and all other taxes levied directly on me (vehicle taxes and any other fees or such) I still pay less than 20%, and I'm in the top 20% of wage earners. As a top wage earner, I can say that the top wage earners do not see any additional negative impact on their finances due to the progressive taxation.

It is an issue of the most wealthy getting the greatest benefit from our government, so they should pay the most for it. Sure, they aren't being handed checks, but the government is the one that allows formation of corporations in which they invest and get returns. The government is the one that forms the standing army to defend their wealth from any invaders. The poorest couldn't care less about the standing army. The peasants in Europe never noticed a change in government. They trodded along, only careing about war when it affected their fields, or if they had the opportunity to cheer or throw tomatoes at the officials. Their day-to-day life was completely unchanged. That's not the case for the wealthy when a new government decides to nationalize the assetts of the wealthy. They have the most to lose, by far, and are therefore the ones with the greatest benefit. It makes sense that they get charged a higher rate.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[briancnorton]

While I applaud your sentiment, this is an overly simplified view of the world. The part that you have completely left out is that there are geopolitical areas in this country and this world that have been in a downward spiral of economic collapse for all time. When wealth concentrates in small areas, it creates a number of problems such as overpopulation, pollution, traffic jams, etc etc. In this country we have delegated the job of managable, balanced economic development to the federal government. We collect and redistribute these resources to maintain and mprove quality of life for everyone. Our military protects everybody equally. Our highway system is of reasonably equal quality everywhere.

The inherent failure of your simple world can easily be seen in our educational system. There is no reason that a child in beverly hills should get a better public education than a child in alabama, yet our system is set up so that local communities are in charge of their educational systems, and great disparities emerge as local priorities and resources are expressed in school funding. Meanwhile Bradley Charles Weatherby III gets a top notch public education and Cleatus B Dingleberry doesn't even have books printed in the last 50 years.

My point is this. It's too easy to look at a few useless sacks of crap that stay on welfare because they are lazy and dismiss the entire rank of poor people. The fact is that many of them are hard workers who lack access to education, economic opportunity, or cultural drive to succeed. Through successful redistribution of resources, improving the educational, economic, and social climates where these people live, we can provide a tangible benefit to everyone, including the "upper middle class" workhorses of our country.

Internationally, the situation changes. We ARE in a competitieve climate for resources, and it will only get worse. China and India have over two billion people that want what we have, and the physical material that it would take to get it to all of them does not exist. Energy, metals, food, fresh water, all of these exist in limited supply. You can't eat or drink wealth, nor can you build a townhouse from it. The minute you stop competeing, you learn this the hard way.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[uncqual]

The notion that the tax burden should depend on ones "Wealth" is dangerous.

"Wealth" is very different from "Income" while "Consumption" is very different from both. Taxes can be levied on any of the three items (or others of course).

The current U.S. personal tax system primarily taxes "Income" (income tax) and, to a lesser extent, "Consumption" (as in sales tax and "luxury" taxes).

The only significant personal "Wealth" tax in the U.S. that comes to mind is property tax. Generally property tax is very progressive - the poorest pay little direct property tax (they tend to rent or live in low cost housing) while consuming the bulk of the benefits (subsidized public health programs, transportation, and education) and the highest income individuals tend to pay high direct property taxes (since they tend to live in expensive homes and own businesses) and reap few if any of the direct benefits (they pay for their own health care [and more], rarely use public transportation [except for politicians who want to make a point], and send their children to private school).

So, what is the "fairest" thing to tax? The usual claim of "unfairness" in the U.S. system of taxation seems to, at the root, be that individuals who enjoy a lot of creature comforts don't pay their "fair" share compared to individuals who have a minimum of creature comforts. It turns out, these creature comforts are a direct result of consumption, not income or wealth.

The only way to substantially enjoy ones wealth is to spend (i.e., consume) it - if you have $1B USD in corporate bonds and stocks and spend only $20K a year, your lifestyle is not much different from a fairly low paid worker BUT your $1B is helping create and sustain jobs. Sure, you're getting a revenue stream from your investment, but obviously less than what someone else thought the assets were worth (else there would have been no willing sellers of the stock you own or willing borrowers of your money) and your lifestyle is not improved by this revenue stream. This investment revenue stream must just be being plowed back into creating and sustaining more jobs (unless you're a horrible investor!) since at most $20K/year is being consumed for creature comforts. Sure, you have a greater feeling of "well being" because you have money for a rainy day which the fairly low paid worker doesn't - but taxing "feelings of well being" seems odd (presumably that would result in taxing those who follow a religion since a feeling of "well being" is something that most religions tout either explicitly or implicitly and would also result in very rich, but emotionally depressed, people paying no taxes).

Consider two single developers working side by side at similar jobs and both earning a salary of $75K/year (for the moment, ignore taxes since "appropriate taxation" is the issue we are addressing):

The first (call them "Mr. Frugal") spends $25K/year ($10K for a studio apartment, $15K for other stuff) and owns an old car, a 20 year old 19 inch color TV, eschews cable TV, and has a wardrobe consisting mostly of t-shirts with product and company names on them. The remaining $50K a year is invested in stocks and corporate bonds.

The second (call them "Mr. HighRoller") spends $75K/year ($25K for a nice apartment, $50K for other stuff) and always has a nice current model year car, a high end HD TV not more than three years old, the best of cable TV packages, and a wardrobe full of the latest designer labels. Since there is no "remaining" money, HighRoller saves or invests nothing.

After working for 45 years, Frugal has well in excess of $2.25M (inflation adjusted of course and assuming the investments were not too stupid) and retires comfortably - never requiring a penny of public assistance. On the other hand, HighRoller retires with NOTHING (except rapidly depreciating designer clothes, HDTV set, and high end car) and ends up living on Social Security

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[saltydogdesign]

Among the many people I know who are arguably upper-middle-class (I'm not one of them), none of them were "born wealthy."

I wish I had time to pick your goofy argument apart piece by piece, but since I work for a living, I'll just take this one point and make a point of my own using your screwed up, baseless logic: Among the many birds I have seen out my kitchen window, none of them were being eaten by cats. Therefore, predation does not exist.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[bitspotter]

We need a common name for the fallacy that everyone on Slashdot thinks alike. Just because the other side has an opportunity to express their differences with other Slashdotters doesn't mean "we" should be //faulted// for being inconsistent.

News flash: groups composed of many people from all over the world don't all think alike! What a concept!

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[bheading]

And how did we manage, despite painful blows to the country's economy (oil delivery shocks from Katrina, etc) have more economic growth and lower unemployment than, say, more socialist-minded places like France or Germany? By reducing the tax burden on the people that take their money and invest it the businesses that hire people and grow the economy.

Your "argument" is misinformed, ignorant, and frankly boring crap. You could start by look at your budget deficit.

Then you could take a look at your taxation levels. The idea that the USA is some sort of tax haven for people is nonsense. The USA taxes it's citizens pretty heavily - the amount of tax is probably not much different from France or Germany. In many places you'll pay taxes to three of four different authorities (federal, state, city tax .. is there county tax in some jurisdictions?). The problem that I think you have with France and Germany is probably the way they spend their money on silly socialist things such as being able to get a heart bypass operation or cancer treatment without being hauled in front of a bankruptcy court, or outdated mumbo-jumbo pinko communist claptrap such as ensuring that a reasonable poverty line is maintained so that people do not become destitute when they are between jobs in a cyclical economy. Instead, the USA spends it's tax money on it's military budget and invading foreign countries. That's their prerogative - you think that the longterm welfare of your people is best funded by spending $120bn on bringing democracy to a middle east sand dune, that is your business - but a lot of people in Europe think it is best served by ensuring that they have the means to acquire education, decent healthcare and living standards that allow them to lead happy and productive lives. I think a lot of people in the USA feel the same way, BTW, but W calls them traitors and ignores them. Fact of life I guess.

Don't take this personally, I'm not anti-USA, it's a great country in many ways. You just have to look at the profile of public spending and taxation in these countries and try to be more objective about it.

Secondly, while I agree that taxing the crap out of rich people just because they're rich is destructive, I do not agree with the "throw more money at the rich people so that they can pay more people to scrub their bathroom floors with toothbrushes" argument. Yes, entrepreneurship must be encouraged, risk-taking must be rewarded, but there is no evidence that your trickle-down economics argument truly works. The state has a role to play - not an overbearing role but a role nonetheless - in ensuring that people lead productive lives. Societies which recognize that there is a time for wealth acquisition as well as a time for leisure and relaxation are just as likely to be happy and successful.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[doubledoh]

but [businesses] typically don't care if they fuck up the environment, injure or kill people as a result.

Prove it. I think you "typically" generalize without two facts to stand on.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[patternjuggler]

If we converted to digital and left the poorest of our nation out in the cold, we'd devolve into some discussion [something contradictory to below]

But when we DO help them [something contradictory to above]



This particular posting doesn't out-and-out accuse We Slashdotters of hypocrisy, but that's the strong implication. How can anyone be so stupid to accuse a group of people of hypocrisy, especially a group claiming no political or ideological uniformity of its members?

Yes, there's probably a plausible explanation, but I don't really care. The 'you guys said one thing before and another thing later and the moderators agreed, you all are hypocrites' argument is retarded.

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[triffid_98]

Bread and Circuses anyone?

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses )

Re:Damned if you do, damned if you don't

[saltydogdesign]

My point was quite simple: anecdotal evidence is useless. I feel terrible for you that I have to spell that out, but I guess you are too dim or stoned or something.

By way of facts, which line in the Forbes article says billionaires didn't start out rich? Unless we are reading different articles, this says that most of the recent billionaires were made by virtue of "bullish world stock markets, a weak dollar and surging commodity and real estate prices." The last factor, entrepreneurialism, is given one example. That ain't saying a whole lot.

Oh come on now!

[geminidomino]

Uncle Sam's solution? 'Yes, the very same federal government that is cutting back on college loans and food stamps will soon be issuing TV vouchers' - $1.5 billion to help U.S. households buy new digital TV equipment."

That's not fair. Surely protecting the priceless "inter-lickual propretty" is more important than little things like eating and education. Where are your priorities? Your sense of ethics? Your campaign contributions?

Re:Oh come on now!

[geminidomino]

And we never know who will be in charge of the next administration.

Really, does it even matter anymore at this point?

College vs. TV

[drewzhrodague]

Uh, I'd rather go to college than watch TV. Why is it that I can get help buying a digital TV, but can't get help with tuition?

Are you fucking kidding me?

[Tassleman]

This is completely retarded. Why not put that money into creating cheap HD Antennas that output shitty analog to Pronged/Coax/Component so people can continue on as usual with a new antenna?

Re:Are you fucking kidding me?

[limabone]

You can already pick up HD signals with your crappy rabbit ears or that monstrosity attached to your house...a generic UHF/VHF antenna will do just fine, and companies that advertise their antennas as being for HDTV are just trying to entice you into buying them.

You will NOT have to replace your antenna, what you will need to get is an external converter to turn the signals from your antenna into something your current TV can handle.

Re:Are you fucking kidding me?

[neomunk]

That's a pipe dream.

Until someone invents a dgital interface for humans then at some point, even if t's the last in the chain, you'll HAVE to convert the signals into analog (like, you know, colors and sounds). This step is NOT optional, and therefore there will ALWAYS be an analog outlet to get copy from.

DRM will be defeated every time until there is found a way to send an encrypted digital signal into someone's skull and decrypt it in there, and even then, somebody's gonna have a dongle poking out from behind their left ear, spewing the latest copy of 'Rocky DCLXVI' unencrypted.

Re:Are you fucking kidding me?

[stefanlasiewski]

That is what these funds are for. These funds will be used to purchase converter boxes to convert the digital signal received from the source to an analog signal.

There is no such thing as a "HD Antenna". UHF/VHF antennas can be used to watch Digital OTA broadcasts, in theory. There's a whole other question about the quality of the signal as received by the antenna- those rabbit ears probably won't work very wekk. A weak analog signal results in a snowy picture-- it's low quality but watchable. A weak digital signal can result in a "stuttering" picture on the screen, like when you try to watch a scratched DVD. It's unwatchable.

question for /.ers

[John Harrison]

Does anyone out there have a set-top box to recieve over the air digital TV signals? A free one, not a pay service like Xoom or USDTV? I know that broadcasters as sending out digital signals but I don't know anyone that currently receives them.

Bread and Circus

[ThatGeek]

'Yes, the very same federal government that is cutting back on college loans and food stamps will soon be issuing TV vouchers' - $1.5 billion to help U.S. households buy new digital TV equipment."

There is a reason why the Romans didn't talk about "Bread, Circus and Higher Education". As long as people are fat and happy, you can basically do whatever you want. Large business know this. The shills they put in government know this. And we know this too.

'Yes, the very same federal government...'

[OakDragon]

'Yes, the very same federal government that is cutting back on college loans and food stamps will soon be issuing TV vouchers'

I realize this is in an 'analysis' piece, but I would be very surprised if it were actually true. Unless by cutting back, he means cutting back in the rate of growth. I'm not even going to attempt to Google this to find meaningful figures, for (I hope) obvious reasons. Anyone know where we can see the real increases/decreases for funding of such items?

Re:'Yes, the very same federal government...'

[operagost]

Figures here. Make sure to skip the "cutting $13 billion" at the top and read the real figures at the bottom. $13 billion will be saved, is what it should say. There isn't some mythical pool of college loan money from which $13 billion will be taken.

Re:'Yes, the very same federal government...'

[Kamel Jockey]

I realize this is in an 'analysis' piece, but I would be very surprised if it were actually true. Unless by cutting back, he means cutting back in the rate of growth.

Neither is true. Anyone who tries to criticize the current administration for spending less on anything is either ill-informed or has been living in a box for the past 6 years. During George W. Bush's term in office, Federal spending has increased at a rate opposite of free fall. Its one of the things that many conservatives like myself find appalling, but we don't see the Democrats as offering any real alternatives to Bush's spending plans (all they do is whine and complain).

I hate how other (alleged) "small government" conservatives try to "argue away" this issue. I am sure that for a president to get the things he wants out of Congress he needs to give a little on the spending side, and I can completely understand that winning a war requires spending money. But Bush literally went off the deep end when he expanded Medicare to cover prescription drug costs, spent tons of money on a useless Farm Bill, and threw even more money at an ineffective Education Department.

There are a lot of conservatives out there would be more than happy with a president who was not only serious about winning the War on Terror but who was also more concerned with keeping the size of the Federal government as small as possible. This idea of offering TV subsidies to people to switch is beyond ludicrous. No one has a Federally-guaranteed right to free TV. If someone wants a television, there's nothing stoping most people from going and working for the money to buy one.

TV is necessary for Government

[Naatach]

Television is a necessary component for our government. $1.5 Billion is a good investment on two counts:

1) The billions the government can rake in in radio frequency auctions
2) Continuance of a medium to keep the unwashed masses under control.

Take a look at the UK...

[Conor Turton]

Maybe the US could build a system along the lines of Freeview, http://www.freeview.co.uk/ or FreeSat, http://www.freesatfromsky.co.uk/

Set top boxes cost from as little as £30 for terrestrial thus meaning those 70 million analogue TVs will be good for years to come.

What happened to the free market?

[BlackStar]

Why is this being legislated? Broadcast could represent a major opportunity as a niche system. All that infrastructure will just be junked? There's a lot of legs left in those transmitters and in the analog network. Economically, this doesn't make any sense.

Add to that the landfill mess this looks to cause. That's a LOT of analog TVs that go to essentially worthless in very short order. We're already dealing with too much computer waste going into the landfills, and now the US is going to legislate putting a very large pile of still functioning and capable televisions in there all at once?

Brilliant. Special interest groups at work again in the legislature it would seem.

Re:What happened to the free market?

[pcraven]

It is being legislated because the spectrum is legislated. It would open up a lot of money's worth of spectrum, more than 1.5 billion worth.

You don't have to junk the TV, just get a digital receiver and then plug it into your current TV.

Re:What happened to the free market?

[Software]

My understanding is that owners of existing analog televisions will have to buy (possibly with government assistance) a tuner/converter box that plugs into their antenna and their television. Maybe they'll need to get a remote control to change the channel. Nobody needs to throw out their television. Yes, some people will instead buy a new digital TV, but it won't be a big deal in the larger scheme of things.

Analog TV transmitters, on the other hand, will probably be mostly useless. Most antenna towers do not have a lot of extra space to keep around unused antennas, so the analog TV antennas will be removed and replaced with something else. It makes perfect economic sense - something of lower value will be replaced with something of higher value.

In the Bay Area

[OYAHHH]

In,

The San Francisco Bay Area the digital transition will not work without a lot of upgrading on peoples part.

There are multiple transmission locations for TV in the Bay Area. This basically means that unless you have one of those monster antennas on your roof you will need an antenna pointed in the direction of the transmissions. Think multiple antennas. Multiple friends of mine have multiple antennas.

Not only that, but from all accounts of those already trying to receive digital transimissions, including myself, digital signals simply do not travel as far.

Or perhaps lets put it another way, the signal may travel just as far as a current day signal, but at the ranges quite a few people in the SF Bay Area are at from the transmission tower the signal is too weak to register within the digital TV receiver to be accurately display. Thus, either you get a perfect signal (or picture if you will) or you get nothing at all. And a lot more people, including myself, are getting nothing at all on my HDTV since I'm just far enough away that the signal seems to be too weak. And I live in the San Jose area, 30 or so miles from San Francisco as the bird flys.

Lastly, quite a few people in the east of SF live in quite mountainous conditions. Cannot pick up things there either.

Re:In the Bay Area

[Ironsides]

Most DTV Transmitters have not been transmitting at full power. There is a deadline coming up at some point where they will have to start transmitting at full power, at that point you should have much better recepetion. As to why they have not been xmitting at full? Power costs a lot of money. TV stations generally spend 10k per month on a single transmitter.

television serves the interests of the state

[Surt]

Any entity that is to continue to exist must look out for its own survival.

In our current system of government, the greatest danger to the existing power structure is voting. A better educated populace is more likely to vote, while a TV watching populace is less likely to do so. So it is in the interests of the state to do what it can to discourage education beyond the minimum level necessary to support the state. Hence the emphasis on putting lots of dollars into extending the reach and influence of TV.

Re:television serves the interests of the state

[Rocketship Underpant]

"Any entity that is to continue to exist must look out for its own survival."

You're on the right track there.

"In our current system of government, the greatest danger to the existing power structure is voting."

I disagree. The democratic state relies almost entirely on masses of selfish people voting. It's so much easier to keep their power by pandering to the ignorant 70% than by demonstrating true merit to the smarter 30%. All they have to do is promise each large demographic that they'll give them a bunch of stuff for nothing, and then steal that stuff from someone else. In fact, the state's best customers (voters) are the country's least productive people, the sorts who would rather watch 6 hours of TV a night than go be entrepreneurial or pay down the credit card.

That's why they always push to get as many people to vote as possible. In fact, many democracies are trying to make non-voting a crime. Getting all those uninformed people to rubber-stamp the politicians' activities is just too important.

Is the government up to something by legislating digital TV? Definitely, but it probably has more to do with all the media companies that give Congressmen bribes and campaign financing. It's one more step towards the total media lock-in that the MPAA and TV companies want. Everything you're allowed to watch will be subject to government licenses and industry DRM.

news?

[pruss]

Can't one get news and weather from the radio, also for free (except you have to buy a receiver, but those are cheaper than TVs)?

What the?

[CaffeineAddict2001]

If you are poor, elderly or uneducated TV should be the last thing you are worrying about.

This really gives some credit to the theory that the primary purpose of television is to pacify people and have them forget the real problems they face.

Not really that bad

[soapee01]

From tfa: the sale of the spectrum would generate approximately $10b in revenue. The net gain ($10b - $1.5b) would still be a revenue influx of $8.5b. This sounds like a (surprisingly) fair and mutually beneficial deal.

Regardless of your feeleings on television, it is important that everyone have free (or near free) access to news, state of the union addresses, etc.

Set-top box?

[Soruk]

The UK seems to have got the right idea. We can get digital terrestrial set-top boxes that plug into the TV, via a SCART lead (which carries, amongst other things RGB and Composite picture signals, and stereo audio), or on a few boxes via an analogue RF signal. That way virtually all existing TV sets can remain in use long after the switch-over takes place.

Only the really old sets don't have SCART sockets now, and although suitable boxes with RF Out exist they are more expensive.

Re:Set-top box?

[kfg]

What the hell does that do for the Chinese economy?

KFG

Re:Set-top box?

[ettlz]

I feel that I should point out here that SCART is a terrible idea. The majority of SCART cables are cheaply made without proper RF shielding giving terrible cross-talk between the lines.

Why set any regulations or standards by force?

[dada21]

Why is Congress and the FCC even bothering with what is obviously not within their powers as delegated to them by the Constitution? The 9th and 10th Amendments apply here.

First, setting a regulatory standard for television broadcasts and forcing the industry to adhere to them is no longer necessary -- when TV was new, I can understand government enforcing a standard. With technology changing monthly, letting the market figure out what is needed is the best solution.

To me, this seems to be simple cronyism by the State. By creating these standards, they're creating a high cost to entry in the video broadcast market. The quicker we see broadband hit the homes, the more I realize that broadcast television is a complete waste of space. Deregulating ALL broadcast television and letting the frequencies be used by wireless broadcasters would make much more sense to me. Can you imagine how cheap and how fast wireless would be if we gave up all those megahertz?

Broadcasting isn't even important: people want video on demand (whether by cable, satellite, ThePirateBay, or PVR). Broadcasting isn't even efficient anymore: advertisers prefer knowing exact numbers rather than "we think we hit 700,000 with this show." In the long run, Congress and the FCC are applying ideas from 1970 to technology that could change 20 times in the next 20 years. Why restrict it?

I say it is time to just ignore these guys -- if big TV broadcasters want to continue to make a mess and force the little guy out of the business, let them. We'll counter it with rebroadcaster their garbage over BitTorrent and through the sharing of information as it was meant to be: free. Take the infinite supply of data versus the finite demand and you end up with a cost of zero.

Re:Why set any regulations or standards by force?

[AeroIllini]

Why is Congress and the FCC even bothering with what is obviously not within their powers as delegated to them by the Constitution? The 9th and 10th Amendments apply here.

Because we let them. They do not have any power that we as a people don't grant to them. Luckily for them, that granting of power can be passive, since voter apathy about issues that truly matter to our freedoms (not the abortion and gay-marriage shoutfests) is at an all time high.

First, setting a regulatory standard for television broadcasts and forcing the industry to adhere to them is no longer necessary -- when TV was new, I can understand government enforcing a standard. With technology changing monthly, letting the market figure out what is needed is the best solution.

The government only has a right to regulate those areas where there is a finite amount of space for competition, such as the radio spectrum. There are only so many radio bands, and companies have to share. Regulating ensures that the sharing is done fairly (at least in a perfect world, which this isn't). The FCC has no business regulating cable television, since there is no scarcity of bandwidth. Most cable television broadcasters self-censor in order to avoid public backlash. But there is no legal reason why Spike TV can't start broadcasting porn.

To me, this seems to be simple cronyism by the State. By creating these standards, they're creating a high cost to entry in the video broadcast market.

Politicians always try to protect those who give them money. Media companies contributed $26 million in the 2000 and 2002 election cycles.

The quicker we see broadband hit the homes, the more I realize that broadcast television is a complete waste of space. Deregulating ALL broadcast television and letting the frequencies be used by wireless broadcasters would make much more sense to me. Can you imagine how cheap and how fast wireless would be if we gave up all those megahertz?

Fast? Certainly. Cheap? Not on your life. Keep in mind it would be sold by the same companies that charge $50 a month for basic cable that is completely ad supported.

Broadcasting isn't even important: people want video on demand (whether by cable, satellite, ThePirateBay, or PVR).

Hear, hear. The days of the "push medium" are coming to a middle.

Broadcasting isn't even efficient anymore: advertisers prefer knowing exact numbers rather than "we think we hit 700,000 with this show."

Absolutely. Unfortunately, if the advertisers knew exactly which ads were working and which were not, they would purchase less advertising, since they would be able to stop "wasting" money on advertising that is ineffectual. This worries the sellers of advertising space.

In the long run, Congress and the FCC are applying ideas from 1970 to technology that could change 20 times in the next 20 years.

Legislation is always years behind technology. Nothing new to see here.

Why restrict it?

Because their campaign financers are asking them to.

I say it is time to just ignore these guys -- if big TV broadcasters want to continue to make a mess and force the little guy out of the business, let them. We'll counter it with rebroadcaster [sic] their garbage over BitTorrent and through the sharing of information as it was meant to be: free. Take the infinite supply of data versus the finite demand and you end up with a cost of zero.

Ok, I was with you up until here.

Information may want to be free, but entertainment sure doesn't. It costs a lot of money to create that entertainment, and the people who made it naturally want that money back. The problem is that within the current system, the market forces are skewed, because people have to pay for bundled sets of entertainment or allow the advertisers to choose what they watch. Unfortunately for the consumers, a pull medium is simply not viable as an

Oblig. Simpsons

[truthsearch]

Television announcer: Your cable television is experiencing difficulties. Please do not panic. Resist the temptation to read or talk to loved ones. Do not attempt sexual relations, as years of TV radiation have left your genitals withered and useless.

A phased approach would be better

[tchuladdiass]

Instead of the analog signals being cut at a certain date, I think a better approach would be to decrease the output power of the analog signal by, say, 20% a year over the course of 5 years. That way, people with existing sets won't be forced to suddenly buy new equipment. Those that don't upgrade will just get a gradually weaker signal. A weak signal will cause people to want to upgrade (or get a cheap digital -> analog converter box), where as a suddenly cut off signal will make for angry viewers.

Re:A phased approach would be better

[erice]

Or a different sort of phased:

5 or more years before analog broadcasts end, no more analog only sets can be sold.
2 years from the drop dead date, only pure digital sets are sold.

That way, most sets convert to digital through the natural replacement cycle. Further, new purchasers, who are generally more affluent, bear the brunt of the broadcast switch over.

Re:Why is this a problem?

[SnapShot]

Yeah, don't pick on television. As you can see from Tassleman's post, television helps us develop our intellect and debating skills. We all are more informed and useful citizens and members of society thanks to TV.

Re:Why is this a problem?

[fleaboy]

Definitely with you on the TV issue. I quit watching altogether about eight years ago and all the TV I've been unable to avoid in public places IS surreal. No wonder things are so interesting.

Doing the math.

[Caspian]

$1.5 billion, divided by-- what-- around 280,000,000 USians? That's five bucks a head. If everyone takes an average of one (you KNOW some cheaters will take more than one), that's five bucks per.

If 10% of the population takes one, that's $50 per.

If 5% of the population takes one, that's $100 per.

If 1% of the population takes one, that's $500 per.

Ah, but this is naive math. That's $1.5 billion for the whole program. I'm sure at least half will get gobbled up by the elaborate system they set up to distribute these things. Retraining, printing forms, programming databases, printing vouchers, negotiating with retailers...

Any bets on how this $1.5 billion will actually filter down to the little guy?

You can

[wiredog]

Join the Army and get the GI Bill. There's only one minor downside...

Would $40 really help your college fund?

[bobalu]

>I'd rather go to college than watch TV
Great, do that and see if it can help your reading skills.

They're not giving you help to buy a digital TV, they're giving $40 for a converter box so you can watch a crappy old analog TV with a nice digital signal. Would $40 really help your college fund?

Government of the TV, by the TV and for the TV

[Zhe Mappel]

There isn't even the slightest irony in the US government ignoring social priorities in favor of supplying better TVs. TV is the lever in fifty years of social control, and nobody in power wants his hand pried lose.

The analog-to-digital crisis--nothing that requires emergency expenditures of billions is not a crisis--points up TV's supremacy in American life. Those screens dare not go blank, even for a moment. It is from TV that Americans take proper instruction in the backstabbing rituals of the I Got Mine society ("reality TV"), learn to fear the system's guardians (cops and courtroom dramas), routinely covet what they can't afford (advertising) and get hallucinatory reassurance from square-jawed automatons ("news"). For the dwindling few who still watch such things, it's also where the marionette-in-chief periodically appears on glistening guide wires to rattle off his sermons.

If Congress didn't help lift the declining middle and growing Wal-Mart classes into the digital age, there'd be trouble. You can't run a nation into debt servitude, steal its liberties, mire it in futile (and feudal) distant wars, corrode its health and environment, leave it to drown in natural disasters, and force it to work longer hours all while presiding over historical levels of official corruption if you also hide the electronic teat. Baby, as every momma knows, wants milk.

Bread and Circuses

[blueZhift]

The govt has no choice but to provide TV vouchers. There are just too many people out there (many who voted for the current administration) who would be mighty pissed if they couldn't watch TV anymore. Joe Sixpack, NASCAR Dads, and Soccer Moms must have their bread and circuses otherwise they might be inclined to revolt. I wish this were just a joke, but I guess the importance of entertainment just tells us something more about the nature of the human spirit.

Anyone mention the obvious?

[XMilkProject]

I didn't see this rather obvious fact in a post yet, but people keep debating the government spending the 1.5 billion, so I guess I'll go ahead and state the obvious...

If you RTFA you will see that the government will be selling off the spectrum used by analog tv for an estimated 10 billion dollars... Hence, spending a small portion of that to facilitate the switch still leaves them with a 8.5 BILLION DOLLAR profit.

So can we please not have any more stupid posts about increased spending, when this deal is entirely designed to make money, not spend it. 8.5 billion will be made almost immediately, with a likely increase in other technologies boosting the economy in the long run as a direct effect.

On a side note, I'd love to see any conversation about this move to digital being driven, in part, by the ease of applying DRM to a digital signal.

"Shakspear"

[Acy James Stapp]

Shakespeare's name was spelled many different ways in Elizabethan times, even by himself.

http://shakespeareauthorship.com/name1.html

So any close spelling is really legitimate.

Re:Why is this a problem?

[ndansmith]

. . . you really don't miss the damn thing: anything that's actually worth watching will be out on DVD sooner or later anyway.

Or you can use a good tv torrent site and watch the programs without commercials the night they air (possible even before broadcast time if you live on the west coast). I really do not think that all the effort to switch to a new sort of television is worth it. The computer is becoming the wholistic entertainment center for the household: Music, games, movies, now television. Someday soon a tv that is just a tv will be like a cellphone that has no camera: extinct. So I think the government should not pony the $1.5B, since media-over-IP is the wave of the future anyhow.

Oh, and for any **AA lawyers who are reading this, I don't actually use tv torrents. I swear!

only on /.

[the computer guy nex]

"Forget college, forget healthcare, we need radio bandwidth and tax cuts for the richest to help fight the terrorists."

Anyone else interested in seeing the person that actually modded this +5 Interesting? Lets not forget that In fact, the percentage of GDP spent on health is higher in the United States than in countries with government-provided health care and the government pays over 300 billion a year in grants towards college.

Heaven forbid we spent 1/200 of that on television. Crazy liberal whiners.

Not individually.

[khasim]

They're not giving you help to buy a digital TV, they're giving $40 for a converter box so you can watch a crappy old analog TV with a nice digital signal. Would $40 really help your college fund?

Not individually.

But put $1.5 billion more into scholarships and such and I can guarantee that more students will get a college education.

Re:Great...

[DaedalusLogic]

Good point... Consider if I rent out my house to someone who uses it to manufacture methamphetamine. I can be held liable for civil and criminal offenses for the impact that the lab has on the property and the community, and if I fail to report the activity.

Too little attention is paid to the illegal activity that goes on in subsidized housing in my community... Someone needs to be down there to say, "You own $5,000 worth of new electronics, move out and get an apartment." It's their money to spend... but the taxpayers are their landlord AND their source of support. We should be able to say when one get's cut off.

But resources are spread too thin... and sending people out to developments costs money.

I'm not saying that all subsidized housing is bad. I'm just saying that it shouldn't be abused... Like multi-million dollar bridges to an island of fifty people etc.

Air Force enlisted men are smarter than

[wiredog]

Army enlisted men. In the Army the officers salute as the privates head for the front. In the Air Force the enlisted men salute as the officers head for the front.

Same here

[ThinWhiteDuke]

Here in France, digital over-the-air TV was just launched last September. The analog signal is not supposed to be switched off before 2015 or so. Yet you can already buy a digital converter for euro59.90 or less in virtually every store. Those boxes just convert the digital signal received by your regular antenna into a signal readable by your regular TV.

We're using DVB-T here like most Restoftheworldians. AFAIK, North America adopted ATSC which uses a different modulation technique. Maybe that's the reason why simple converters don't do the work.

Re:Same here

[TheSync]

ATSC is not inherently harder to demodulate than DVB-T, in fact it is a bit easier, but only if you don't have multipath interference. Until this year, ATSC demodulators have had a rough time with multipath intereference, but now there are new chips that can handle it OK.

DVB-T uses COFDM which uses hundreds or thousands of carriers at different frequencies that change amplitude slowly. On the other hand, ATSC uses a single carrier amplitude modulated very quickly (VSB modulated, technically). Thus small time differences due to multipath are not a problem for COFDM, but are a problem for 8-VSB modulation of ATSC. The new chips have extensive time-domain equalizers to handle multipath.

On the other hand, there was evidence that 8-VSB provides a greater coverage area with less power. Power costs are a major issue for television transmitters.

The other issue is that ATSC includes high-definition, while European DVB-T systems don't (as far as I know). Hi-def decoders are a bit more complex than standard-def decoders.

Govt. = SCREWS EVERYTHING UP!

[Newer Guy]

ANYTHING the Govt. gets involved with WILL be screwed up! This particular mess is being handled by the FCC and Congress. The FCC is probably the single most incompetant of all the federal agencies. I work in radio, and a 15 year old could manage spectrum better then these clowns do! Congress is not much better, since they've had a "FOR SALE" sign hanging at the front door of the Capitol Building since the Republicans took over in the mid '90's.

Who's fault is it?

[marcus]

Ever bother to ask why they have to hold down two jobs to feed their family?
Why can't they get one good job?
Even if they have a "good" job, why are they still living check-to-check?

In this country(USA), all of these boil down to personal choices.
Yes, they chose to drop out of school.
Yes, they chose to have sex when they couldn't afford it.
Yes, they chose to buy fancy wheels for their otherwise beat up car rather than save for the future(any future, their own, their kids', any).

The list goes on and except for a very special few who were born with personal disadvantages that really do prevent them from competing with the average Joe, these are the reasons why the poor are poor. THE base reason why the poor are poor is because they have made poor choices.

I have seen those that were not poor become poor because of poor choices. The most common choice of these I have seen is choosing to consume cocaine. What a waste.

Yes, there are those that start poor because their parents are poor, but that is no excuse for staying poor. I have seen poor become not poor, myself and others, by doing nothing more than basically wising up.

I'm not marginalizing anyone's life. I'm just minding my own business. If more would do just that, there would be fewer poor. If you didn't get it, think about it for a moment.

There are a few simple rules to guide your choices in your life, listed in my particular order:

1) In all choices, consider your future.

The rest stem from the first.

2) Be literate, basic reading and arithmetic/algebraic skills are required.

3) Don't have kids until you can afford them.

That's about it. Yes, it is personal responsibility 101.

Magic money! 10 billion from thin air.

[26199]

Where do people think that 10 billion comes from? It's a tax. A very sneaky one, but a tax nonetheless. You'll be paying extra for all the resulting new technology. Or, worse still, the technology won't arrive because the companies paid a ridiculous amount in the auction. We've seen something like that in the UK with mobile phone spectrum. See the first paragraph of this editorial.

So, please, don't talk about the switchover as if it produces money. It doesn't, it's just a tax that people aren't smart enough to complain about.

Public broadcasting

[kureido]

The net gain ($10b - $1.5b) would still be a revenue influx of $8.5b. This sounds like a (surprisingly) fair and mutually beneficial deal.

It does indeed, until you read that the government is selling off spectrum that belongs to the American public to commercial interests. The first comprehensive legislation on spectrum use and broadcasting was the Radio Act of 1927, which established the Federal Radio Commission, precursor to today's FCC. The Radio Act instructed the FRC to favor those stations which served the "public interest, convenience, or necessity," but the pro-commercial administration of the FRC soon began cracking down on precisely those sorts of stations, run by non-profit groups and universities across the country. The FRC constantly reallocated these stations' spectrum, and finally came to the compromise, if you can call it that, of "allowing" many public interest stations to share a minute portion of the overall spectrum, and licensed the rest of it to commercial networks like NBC and CBS. (In 1927, NBC and CBS hardly existed; in 1931, their stations accounted for 70% of the broadcast power in the U.S.)

This step was the first of many in severely hindering those who wanted to use the electromagnetic spectrum to serve the public interest. Anyone flipping through cable channels today knows all too well who won that battle, and the recent Telecommunications Act of 1996 was more or less the last nail in the coffin -- its deregulatory clauses allowed for the creation of what could perhaps be called a media cartel, as the limits on the number of broadcasting stations one company could own were all but eliminated. Smaller companies merged together and about half of the nation's broadcasting stations changed hands as media giants snapped up as many stations as they could lay their hands on. See the case of Clear Channel Communications, which now owns roughly 1200 stations across the country.

Where am I going with all this? If anything, I'd like to see parts of that reclaimed spectrum reserved for public broadcasting, and a significant portion of profit gained from the sale of the rest of the spectrum to private interests allocated to fund public broadcasting. I simply don't think it's justified to use that money for anything else.

For more information on the political history of broadcasting in the U.S., see Robert W. McChesney's Rich Media, Poor Democracy: Communication Politics in Dubious Times, ISBN 1-56584-634-6.

Oh, the stupidity.

[atomic_toaster]

1) Congress has budgeted $1.5 billion to provide vouchers for owners of outdated TVs to purchase digital-to-analog converters. Each owner will be entitled to two vouchers worth $40 apiece. Do the math: 70 million outmoded TVs x $80 in vouchers = $5.6 BILLION. Congress' proposed budget is woefully inadequate in comparison to its commitments.

2) Why in the world is the US government subsidizing television reception for outdated TVs in the first place? Couldn't they just announce the cut-off date and then say "sorry, the rest of you were warned"? Those who can afford to subscribe to cable/satellite will continue to do so, and those who can't will go to places where they can watch free public screenings, or spend more time reading. Television access is a luxury, not a right; why has it become one? FTA, Consumer groups say this is only fair because the government is essentially reducing the value of people's property. Well, they don't make media for my 8-track machine anymore -- where's my money???

3) FTA, Sets hooked up to cable or satellite services should work fine no matter what. This means that coax input will remain constant, and this means that we've had digital-to-analog TV converters for YEARS. They're commonly called VCRs; actual tape machines or digital ones will work, so long as it has coax in and out, and RCA out. To convert the signal, the recording part of the machine doesn't even have to operate properly. VCRs that eat tapes but still have working connections are easy to find second-hand at the Salvation Army and garage sales, usually for $5 or less. (This is what I did when I was in college; I hooked up a VHS VCR that ate tapes to a Commodore 64 monior, and I basically had a television set with tuner. All for less than $15. And this was "all the way back" in 2000.) New machines can cost as little as $50 for a VHS VCR and $100 for a DVD recorder. So to think that new analog-to-digital converters, without tape or DVD writing mechanisms, should be $40 to $80 apiece is ludicrous.

4) FTA, People are supposed to apply for the vouchers during a three-month window in 2008, and use them within three months. But there probably won't be enough vouchers to go around... You think? When the allocated budget is about a quarter of what it should be? Say it ain't so! And the logistics surrounding such a short turn-around time are horrendous.

6) For 20 million people who have been watching TV over radio spectrum, the digital-to-analog converters are going to be rather useless. Why? Because one of the reasons that they were watching free TV is because they couldn't afford to pay for cable/satellite in the first place! Why does the government figure that these people can suddenly afford to have cable/satellite installed and pay the monthly fees? This is a modern-day rendition of "let them eat cake!"

6) You may remember a previous Slasdot post about the Digital Content Security Act, which has legislators introducing a "measure [that] will outlaw the manufacture or sale of electronic devices that convert analog video signals into digital video signals, effective one year from its enactment..." Digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital devices are easily reversable, especially when you're talking coax to RCA. So once the MPAA has all television converted to digital, they want to outlaw the hardware that the government plans to subsidize so that people can watch their content? Am I the only one who sees a flaw with this?

Re:Oh, the stupidity.

[babyrat]

2) Why in the world is the US government subsidizing television reception for outdated TVs in the first place? Couldn't they just announce the cut-off date and then say "sorry, the rest of you were warned"?

No, the government is making an estimated $10 billion on the deal (auctioning the spectrum), and has decided to allocate some of that money to help people out. Tell me what's wrong with that?

3) FTA, Sets hooked up to cable or satellite services should work fine no matter what. This means that coax input will remain constant, and this means that we've had digital-to-analog TV converters for YEARS. They're commonly called VCRs;

No - you have to have a device capable of translating the digital to analog. The satellite or cable boxes do this. Your VCR will not (unless you have some sort of new fangled HDTV VCR).

6) For 20 million people who have been watching TV over radio spectrum, the digital-to-analog converters are going to be rather useless. Why? Because one of the reasons that they were watching free TV is because they couldn't afford to pay for cable/satellite in the first place! Why does the government figure that these people can suddenly afford to have cable/satellite installed and pay the monthly fees? This is a modern-day rendition of "let them eat cake!"

WTF?? If you have one of the boxes you won't need cable. Just like today - I can get all the major stations HD feed over the air (for free) because I have a new TV with an HD tuner built in. If i had one of these boxes, then I wouldn't need an HDTV with a tuner built in - i could watch free digital signals today.

Misunderstanding relationships

[argStyopa]

Let's be clear about who is doing what to whom, shall we?

Television is not provided gratis to the viewing public out of the generosity of some media mogul's heart (or space formerly therefore).

Television is a MEANS of delivering viewer eyeballs to advertiser content. They 'bait' you with 24 minutes of programming per half hour, and then hope you don't notice that they 'switch' to advertising for at least 6 minutes. (Admittedly, lately they've gotten more subtle about the switch part by using product placement, and cheapened the bait with 'Reality' TV, but the principle's the same.)

Hi-def will be a way for these companies to put out more attractive bait. (OK, actually what happened was that the digital compression algorithms have allowed them to squeeze more analog signals into the allowed bandwidth, more like dropping LOTS of shitty-baited hooks in the water instead of something particularly attractive. Gov't is mandating that they use only the 'pretty bait'.)

So could someone explain to me why the US gov't is subsidising a privately owned and MASSIVELY profit-generating product delivery system?

FactCheck!

[GarfBond]

Here's a nice article from factcheck.org on the subject: Ad Pushes Digital TV - But Doesn't Tell The Whole Story

Telecom companies pushing for a forced conversion to all-digital television broadcasts ran ads in Washington DC and elsewhere highlighting benefits for firemen, police officers, and other "first responders," who stand to receive improved communications capabilities and gear. The ad calls digital TV a "win-win solution" benefiting both consumers and the emergency responders.

The ad is true as far as it goes, but misleading because it implies that the digital-TV bill taking shape in Congress would have only winners. In fact, there would be losers, too. According to the GAO, an estimated 21 million households now get TV only through a standard, analog TV set, and would be forced either to junk their set and buy a new digital set, or to obtain a new converter that manufacturers estimate will cost about $50.

Also not mentioned is that taxpayers will be asked to contribute up to $3 billion to subsidize the conversion. That money would come from the proceeds expected from auctioning off some of the airwaves now used by TV broadcasters.

The funding of the ad is also something of a mystery. One source told us it was financed by Motorola, which stands to profit from the transition by selling new police, fire and emergency radio equipment. Motorola wouldn't confirm that, nor would they deny it.

They can't handle their customer base

[tekrat]

The infrastructure is not up to the task of delivering a digital HDTV signal to every home in America. The cable companies *think* they can handle the load, but they are way wrong.

There are old buildings with old wires, and as the signal strength decreases before it gets to the TV set (or converter box), the loss of signal will create all kinds of glitches.

Bad taps in lock boxes in basements can cause signal breakup, loss of signal entirely, and all manner of artifacting, including, but not limited to extreme pixelation of the image and audio degradation to the point of inaudibility.

In short; the cable companies could find themselves having to re-wire a large percentage of inner-urban areas where the loss of TV entirely for large percentages of the population could even lead to riots.

Worst is that they are in for a surprise when it still won't work because of other equipment failures between their origination point and the destination box.

The cable companies, used to short-changing their customer base and providing the lowest service at the higest prices, will suddenly find itself in the unenviable position of actually having to do WORK to make it all happen. And they aren't going to want to pay for it, having already spent their government subsidies on yachts for the upper executives.

In short, they aren't ready to handle even their existing customer base.

Unrealistic expectations

[tcgroat]

Some of that spectrum will go to first responders -- police, fire and public safety officials -- so they can better communicate with one another. Breakdowns in emergency communication slowed the response to the September 11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina. New spectrum should help.

That means duplication or replacement of most existing public safety radio equipment. Since the departments barely have the budgets to maintain the existing systems, where will the money come from to buy, install, and maintain all the new ones? Interoperability was a goal even before 9/11. It still hasn't happened because nobody is willing to pay for it. New spectrum won't help without the equipment to use it.

The rest of the spectrum will be auctioned off to the highest bidders -- probably tech companies. The sale of this valuable, scarce real estate is expected to bring in about $10 billion, maybe more. That will help reduce the federal budget deficit...Scheduled for 2008, the auction will be the biggest spectrum sale since a 1994-95 spectrum auction. That sale helped boost the mobile phone industry, boosting the number of cell phone subscribers in the U.S. from 24 million to 200 million. It also helped drive down the cost of wireless minutes from an average of 47 cents a minute to 9 cents a minute, according to analysis from financial services firm Stifel Nicolaus.

First, recall the huge expenditures needed for new public safety radio equipment. That alone is likely to consume all the auction revenue.

Second, recall the telcom bust that followed the '94-'95 land grab. The survivors remember the financial bloodbath that resulted from that bidding war, and are unlikely to spend so profligately again. The principle of supply and demand strongly suggests that declining air-time prices are symptoms of excess capacity. Why would the telcoms pay billions for more, when they need huge discounts to sell what they already have?