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Official DTV Converter Box Coupons for Americans
Ant writes "The official Digital Television/DTV Converter Box Coupon Program is now online. Congress created it for households wishing to keep using their analog TV sets and use over-the-air antennae to get TV feeds. After February 17, 2009. The Program allows American households to obtain up to two coupons, each worth $40, that can be applied toward the cost of eligible converter boxes. A TV connected to cable, satellite, or other pay TV service does not require a TV converter box from this program."
Yeah, it's going almost as fast as free cheese :)
I'm glad that some steps are being taken - however bureaucratic & ineffective it may turn out to be, to address the turmoil that will be caused by the shutdown of analog broadcasting in 13 months.
My big concern is that the people this program is designed for are the ones least likely to know about it. Maybe the FCC should require public svc announcements on analog TV stations pushing the toll free number instead of the website. Actually, I hope the phone application doesn't require touchtones, since I suspect that even that low bar may exclude the ones who will be most affected by the analog shutdown.
And a quick poll: How many of you think that the government issuing $40 coupons for converter boxes is going to raise the price of converter boxes by $40?
This is not my sandwich.
I can agree there. I know of a lot of people who have no idea what the digital switch even is. When I try to break it down into the simplest terms "Your old TV is going to quit working without an extra box in 2009.", they generally just laugh it off as if I'd told them aliens were going to invade.
:).
Bad thing is, a lot of these people are pretty far from the digital transmitters anyways. I myself have a lot of trouble with it. A few days ago I had posted that I couldn't pickup anything using my digital tuner, and some people mentioned antenna quality (and I was admittedly using a pretty bad antenna). So, I went out and bought a $40 UHF antenna with a powered amplifier. Nice looking little thing. I was amazed that compared to the 0 my set was registering it now reported 9 channels. Unfortuneatly none of them come in strong enough to provide a good watchable picture. It'll be fine for 10 seconds or so and then the image will corrupt for 2-3 seconds. Rinse, repeat. Enough to say "Hey, this picture looks good when it works, and having all the program scheduling and info is nice too, but I can't really watch this as is." I don't think I'm going to get much better without going to something big mounted on the roof (which I'd strongly prefer to avoid).
I'll just stick with satellite for now which has been digital for a very long time
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
It's how it worked in the 'college' market. "Well if the government is giving everyone 10k, we might as well still make parents pay." Tuition is at an all time high.
It's how it worked for health care. "Well most people have insurance anyway. No reason not to charge $150 for a pair of crutches". Health care is at an all time high.
It's not quite THAT silly. The government is going to make a lot of money auctioning off that freed-up spectrum. Surely compensating the people who will end up sacrificing to make way for that auction is not completely absurd? If the spectrum is worth $10 billion (which I think is a bit conservative), they would have to give away 250,000,000 $40 coupons before beginning to lose money on the swap. There are only 266 million TVs in the US, and I highly doubt that all of them will see a digital over-the-air box, especially since more than half of them are hooked up to cable.
And of course, there is the environmental impact of 100,000,000 TVs all hitting the landfill at the same time as people realize that it isn't cost effective to buy a box for their 5-10 year-old TV.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
The problem is that retailers are still allowed to sell analog sets. Only sets over a certain size are now mandated, but you can still walk into a KMart and buy an analog set. Sales of analog "only" sets should have been banned 4 or 5 years ago, but FCC / congress bent to the whining of manufacturers. Disgraceful.
1.5 BILLION dollars of our tax money is going into upgrading peoples TV. Thats every cent of tax paid by about 210,000 middle class families this year. When TWO!? of your TVs get cut off and you can't live without them then get off your fat ass and earn the $80 yourself.