FCC Says Analog TV Lives Until 2012

walterbays writes ""The FCC voted 5-0 to require that cable operators must continue to make all local broadcasts available to their users, even those with analog televisions." I don't understand how AT&T manages to deliver U-verse without any analog channels. Did they get it classified as not-cable and exempt from existing rules? Or as a result of this vote, will they suddenly have to drop 50 SD channels to make room for 5 NTSC channels?"

Comments

Re:The digital TV switch isn't going to happen

[prockcore]

everywhere you used HD in your post.. switch it to digital. digital!=HD

Re:Welcome to the Dark Ages

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

This comitment to analog technology is just as much a problem for cell phones as for TV. This desire to keep the old stuff going is what keeps USA in the cellphone middle ages.

You don't know what the hell you're talking about.

• No one except a very few luddites (and older OnStar users) use AMPS in the US.
• The FCC ruled years ago that, as of February 2008, Cellular band (850MHz) providers are no longer required to provide any AMPS service.
• PCS (1900MHz) carriers (T-Mobile, Sprint) have never been required to provide AMPS service. Neither T-Mobile nor Sprint have ever provided analog mobile services
• Verizon and Sprint have already deployed national 3G (CDMA2000 1xEV-DO Rev A) networks.
• Sprint will begin deploying WiMAX at the beginning of 2008
• AT&T is in the process of a major UMTS/HSDPA launch. Major metro areas are covered, with more to follow in the fall.
• T-Mobile is launching UMTS/HSDPA this fall. They are late not because of a lack of hardware but because of a lack of spectrum (which they rectified during the AWS auction).
• There are over 85 million GSM subscribers in the US, more than any country in Western Europe.
• Unlimited GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA/EV-DO is standard in the US. Billing by the megabyte is rare. I pay $20/mo for unlimited GPRS/EDGE.
• Unlimited nights, weekends, and calls on the same network are common in the US.
• We don't pay to call customer service.
• Roaming rates in Canada/Mexico are less than roaming rates in Western Europe, despite the fact that there are legal limits on the rates in Europe.

The "US is behind in mobile phones" argument is bullshit. You might argue that the contract model we use is broken, and it probably is (although it does result in surprisingly good deals for many subscribers). But we have the same technologies as the rest of the world (GSM/UMTS/HSDPA), in addition to CDMA2000 (which is also used by South Korea, Canada, and some other countries) and iDEN. We have two healthy national GSM carriers (and soon two national GSM/UMTS carriers). I can buy any of the fancy GSM/UMTS phones out there and use it on a US network (assuming that it's unlocked and has the right bands).

Maybe you think we should have enforced a GSM monoculture like the EU. But that's not the way we do things in the US, and our way seems to be working out fine.

Re:It's just television

[RzUpAnmsCwrds]

And I can't believe how terrible the sound quality is on GSM networks compared to CDMA networks.

GSM EFR (or the equivalent AMR-FR) sounds better than CDMA. Unfortunately, AT&T is running half-rate AMR (AMR-HR) on most of its network to increase capacity. AMR-HR is passable, but it's definitely not as good as EFR or AMR-FR.

FYI, the CDMA vocoder has a lot of noise cancellation, which is one reason it works with lower data rates.

Re:The digital TV switch isn't going to happen

[Proudrooster]

Not only that, but digital cable REQUIRES a set top box because they encrypt the BASIC CABLE channels? So, even if I go out and spend $4000 on a giant wall mount Digital LCD panel, I still have to have the SET TOP BOX unless I want to limit myself to OTA (Over The Air Broadcast) HD channels and Digital Mexican Music stations. I want the FCC to mandate that DIGITAL CABLE has to work the same as ANALOG CABLE so I don't need a SET TOP box for NON-PREMIUM CHANNELS.

Re:Welcome to the Dark Ages

[Detritus]

NTSC and ATSC use the same amount of bandwidth (6 MHz). The spectrum savings are from the ability to pack the stations more tightly, in space and frequency, in the broadcast band. ATSC is more resistant to interference, so less spectrum is wasted on guard bands and geographic separation.