Why we shouldn't delay the digital TV transition

[Dominus Atheos]

I Ars Technia

Assumptions

At the request of the incoming Obama Administration, leading members of Congress have drafted legislation to delay the digital TV transition for close to four months, justifying their action as a way to protect needy Americans from losing access to their local TV station programming. But is this the real reason for the delay?

In 2005, Congress passed legislation granting every American household the right to request up to two coupons (worth $40 each) to purchase a digital-to-analog TV converter box. The goal was to ensure that no household would lose access to their local TV station's programming after February 17, 2009, when those stations would have to stop transmitting analog signals over the public airwaves.

All Americans now have access to all or some of their local TV station's programming by subscribing to cable, satellite, or broadband Internet service. By law, all cable and satellite companies must carry local TV station programming on their networks. By law, too, all new TV sets sold in the last few years have had to include special tuners to pick up the digital TV signals broadcast terrestrially, over-the-air by local TV stations. But some Americans nevertheless rely on analog, terrestrial, over-the-air reception to pick up their local TV stations. As of December 2008, approximately 6 percent of U.S. residences, including vacation residences, exclusively rely on such analog reception. Some of these households, like those belonging to Amish or Hasidic families, may own an analog TV but seek to watch it as little as possible. Some even believe that broadcast TV programming is harmful to their children. When my local member of Congress visited my child's elementary school during TV-Turnoff Week, he advised the kids to turn off their TV set and read a good book.

A key assumption behind America's digital TV transition policy is that individual Americans shouldn't be harmed by technological obsolescence even if that obsolescence is in the public interest. But why should the government subsidize a consumer's obsolete fifteen-year-old $100 color TV and not his obsolete four-year-old computer? Every communications industry has had to transition from analog to digital technology over the last few decades. Why treat the broadcasters' transition specially?
Special treatment

The most common answer is that the situation is different in this case because the government is mandating the transition. But imposing costs on Americans via government regulation and taxes—including mandated technological transitions— is as American as apple pie. When the government forced horses off the roads to make way for cars, it did not subsidize the horse owners. When, in the last few years, it forced the mobile telephone companies to transition consumers from analog to digital technology, it did not subsidize the owners of the obsolete analog handsets.

The same pattern holds in other democracies. When the model for the U.S. digital TV transition, Berlin, Germany, underwent its government mandated digital TV transition, the subsidy to analog TV set owners was restricted solely to the poor. Elsewhere, even that subsidy wasn't made. Finland, Sweden, and the Netherlands all completed their digital TV transitions by the end of 2007—and without any converter box subsidies.

What makes this particular technological transition different is the political power of America's FCC-licensed TV broadcasters and the money at stake.

The TV broadcast band occupies public airwaves worth more than $200 billion based on the auction receipts of comparable spectrum. Broadcasters' primary political strategy has been to use the digital transition to acquire additional rights to that spectrum free-of-charge. In 1996, for example, broadcasters were granted an interest-free loan of spectrum worth $70 billion.

The broadcasters' secondary strategy has been to hold the grossly underutilized broadcast spectrum hostage in exchange for many other valuable rights, such as government subsidies for TV converter boxes so their customers won't switch to the competition. Broadcasters have great political leverage because in return for freeing up public airwaves worth $50 billion, a few billion dollars to pay for digital TV converter boxes and other perks is chump change.

The broadcast lobby now claims that the digital TV transition will hurt the poor if not postponed. But four years ago it was the staunchest opponent of following Berlin, Germany's digital TV transition model, which limited the government's converter box subsidy program to the poor. Instead, it successfully insisted that everyone, including billionaires and those with prehistoric black-and-white TVs in their basements, should be eligible to receive two TV coupons per residence, including vacation homes. The result was that Congress allocated only enough money for the neediest to get the coupons, while compromising with the broadcasters to make everyone eligible to receive them. Broadcasters then blitzed the airwaves with $1 billion worth of ads encouraging the least needy to apply for the coupons, contributing to the current coupon shortage for the neediest. If Congress sets aside more money for digital TV coupons, this time the money should be directed to the poor, not billionaires.

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Another reason given for the delay is consumer confusion. But much of the current consumer confusion about the digital TV transition stems from the fact that broadcasters advertise the use of converter boxes so as to discourage their over-the-air viewers from defecting to cable or satellite networks, where it is much easier for their viewers to switch to competitors' channels.

Broadcasters' political power stems from their sophisticated lobbying apparatus and control of local news. Consider John Podesta, co-chair of President Obama's Transition Team. On January 7, 2009 he sent a letter on behalf of Obama to Congressional leaders asking them to postpone the Digital TV Transition, currently set to take place on February 17, 2009. He justified the delay by pointing to the neediest American citizens. But the self-interested lobbying of the broadcasting industry also likely played a role. According to data from the Center for Responsive Politics, the lobbying firm that John Podesta and his brother helped found has received $2.36 million from the National Association of Broadcasters over the last decade. During the last two years, the Podesta Group has been the top lobbying firm of the National Association of Broadcasters.

But the primary source of the broadcast lobby's political clout stems from its control of the local TV news coverage received by every member of Congress. As I argue in my book Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick: How Local Broadcasters Exert Political Power, members of Congress seek to avoid their local broadcasters' wrath if they want to show up on the evening news and receive favorable campaign coverage.

It is now 22 years since the broadcast industry successfully fought against an FCC proposal to use the underutilized broadcast spectrum for mobile telecommunications service. At the time, a majority of Americans still received their primary TV signals terrestrially, over-the-air. When the government's coupon program began in early 2008, less than 10 percent did, despite the government's massive spectrum and tax subsidies to the terrestrial, over-the-air broadcasters.
Propping up the broadcast lobby

Congress is now using the converter box subsidy as yet one more method to prop up this obsolete but politically powerful industry. Cable and satellite are much more efficient ways to deliver broadcasting. But the future doesn't even belong to broadcasting: Americans increasingly want TV via broadband (also known as Web TV), which offers millions of times more viewing options, including the power to watch what they want when they want.

Broadcasters know the current digital TV standard incorporated into the digital TV converter boxes is more than a decade old and already obsolete (most of the world didn't even adopt the American standard because it is viewed as so inflexible and primitive). Accordingly, the FCC has granted broadcasters permission to evolve to a next generation digital standard. When broadcasters roll out that technology, will the government protect the owners of the current government-subsidized converter boxes?

And if the government must subsidize or protect all Americans from any law that reduces the value of their assets, what about the companies that bid $19 billion to start using on February 17, 2009 the sliver of the analog spectrum the broadcasters are giving up? The message the government is sending—one that it has already sent too many times—is that unless you're a politically powerful bidder, do not bother bidding because you'll have a lobbying disadvantage protecting the terms of your winning license. Do we really only want to limit bidding on spectrum to giant, politically sophisticated companies? And what about the taxpayers who will receive billions of dollars less money from future government spectrum auctions because bidders will have to take into consideration the increased likelihood that the terms of licenses up for bid will be adversely renegotiated after the bidding is over?

And let's not forget how quickly members of Congress have forgotten 9/11 and the 9/11 Commission's urgent and influential plea to complete the digital TV transition for the sake of public safety, which was to receive 24 MHz of the 108 MHz of spectrum freed up at the end of the transition. Members of Congress were never very fearful of the wireless broadband constituency, which rarely even knew its own interests. But if catering to the broadcast lobby meant that fire and police couldn't effectively communicate in a 9/11 type incident, then the political equation seemed quite different. Memories of 9/11 have long since faded. But if between February 17, 2009 and the newly proposed June 12, 2009 deadline there is a new 9/11 with its attendant public safety communications disaster, we'll know who to blame.
Delayed already

Congress has already passed legislation to delay the digital TV transition. On December 10, 2008, it passed the "analog nightline" bill to delay the digital TV transition for a month, albeit only in the post-transition white spaces allocated for unlicensed use. The incumbent TV broadcasters will not be allowed to broadcast regular programming on their giveback channel during that month, but will be allowed to broadcast ads about the digital TV transition from morning until night. Imagine granting General Motors the right to advertise for free its new vehicle lineup 24/7 for a month on every former analog broadcast TV channel in the U.S. Nice, if you can get it. Of course, delaying use of the TV white spaces was a political no-brainer for members of Congress because no Americans yet have the unlicensed wireless devices that will occupy the white spaces; as such, it was a perfect illustration of Congress favoring telecom incumbents against the faceless, ignorant, apathetic, and unorganized public. Moreover, by playing various legislative tricks, Congress was able to pass the bill without the otherwise legally required Congressional Budget Office estimate of its financial burden on the private sector. Let's hope that if Congress passes a digital TV transition delay bill, it doesn't play similar games to avoid a fair and accurate Congressional Budget Office estimate of the delay's cost.

Congress has also already allowed some broadcasters to turn off their analog signals without any protection for consumers dependent on those signals. The idea was that since broadcasters would eventually have to give up that spectrum anyway, why not allow broadband companies to pay them for early access to that spectrum. The current proposed legislation allows broadcasters to continue to charge for early access until June 12, 2009—regardless of its impact on consumers.

The broadcast lobby has already done immense harm to the rollout of affordable and ubiquitous wireless broadband service because for decades it has been squatting on the spectrum best suited to provide such service. Delaying the digital TV transition will only delay the transition to such broadband service. And it is the needy who will be most hurt by this delay. Will the Obama Administration continue the government's historic pattern of protecting powerful telecom incumbents at the expense of average Americans? Will it fulfill its campaign's pledge to seek the changes necessary to quickly bring about a broadband future for all? Its handling of the digital TV transition provides cause for pessimism.

J.H. Snider, the president of iSolon.org, is the author of Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick: How Local Broadcasters Exert Political Power.

[Broomstick]

All Americans now have access to all or some of their local TV station's programming by subscribing to cable, satellite, or broadband Internet service.

They have this access for a price. A monthly price. Basic satellite or cable starts at around $80/month in my area. That's more money than I spend on food and gas in a week. What he is saying is that people have potential access if they have the money to spare, but the most needy families, those who can't spare those bucks for monthly service don't deserve access. Fuck them, they don't need to get local news, traffic information, weather, low-cost entertainment, public service announcements, and screw them, they don't deserve to watch things like yesterday's historical inauguration.

By law, too, all new TV sets sold in the last few years have had to include special tuners to pick up the digital TV signals broadcast terrestrially, over-the-air by local TV stations. But some Americans nevertheless rely on analog, terrestrial, over-the-air reception to pick up their local TV stations.

Right. Because why should I throw out my functional TV and purchase a new one when a $40 box extends the use of my functional TV another decade? Especially since I'm on such a restricted budget.

As of December 2008, approximately 6 percent of U.S. residences, including vacation residences

Which neatly ignores all the senior citizens on a fixed budget for whom buying a new TV or subscribing to cable would impose hardship. Let's make this look like a problem of spoiled rich people instead of cutting off the lowest strata of citizens from part of our common culture.

But why should the government subsidize a consumer's obsolete fifteen-year-old $100 color TV and not his obsolete four-year-old computer?

Because the government is rendering that TV useless whereas the four year computer is still functional?

The most common answer is that the situation is different in this case because the government is mandating the transition. But imposing costs on Americans via government regulation and taxes—including mandated technological transitions— is as American as apple pie.

On the other hand, there is the concept that the poor should not be as heavily taxed as the wealthy. And in any case, tradition does not equal moral correctness.

When the government forced horses off the roads to make way for cars, it did not subsidize the horse owners.

Nor did they pick an arbitrary day to go out and shoot all the horses. The transition occurred over decades during which cars slowly replaced horses. If the government said "you can no longer sell analog TVs" and allowed attrition to replace analog with digital that would be comparable to cars replacing horses.

The same pattern holds in other democracies. When the model for the U.S. digital TV transition, Berlin, Germany, underwent its government mandated digital TV transition, the subsidy to analog TV set owners was restricted solely to the poor.

Which, arguably, should have been done here - subsidize the poor who couldn't afford buying new TV's or being forced to buy cable services.

a few billion dollars to pay for digital TV converter boxes and other perks is chump change.

Which implies the coupon program cost billions - but it didn't and won't. A gross, gross factual distortion.

If Congress sets aside more money for digital TV coupons, this time the money should be directed to the poor, not billionaires.

This is the only part of his screed I agree with. Although then there's the problem of proving need, which will also impose costs on the system.

Another reason given for the delay is consumer confusion. But much of the current consumer confusion about the digital TV transition stems from the fact that broadcasters advertise the use of converter boxes so as to discourage their over-the-air viewers from defecting to cable or satellite networks, where it is much easier for their viewers to switch to competitors' channels.

Is that so? Then why do all the broadcast channels around here say over and over and over that cable and satellite subscribers don't need this? And people with new TV's don't need this? If there really was this big conspiracy wouldn't they omit those sentences?

Congress is now using the converter box subsidy as yet one more method to prop up this obsolete but politically powerful industry. Cable and satellite are much more efficient ways to deliver broadcasting.

IF you can afford them!

There is also the problem that, after natural disasters such as hurricaines, cable is restored much more slowly than broadcast. Sucks to be those people, guess they shouldn't live in earthquake zones, hurricane prone areas, places that experience tornadoes or blizzards.... oh, wait, that's pretty much everywhere, isn't it? You're always vulnerable to something.

But the future doesn't even belong to broadcasting: Americans increasingly want TV via broadband (also known as Web TV), which offers millions of times more viewing options, including the power to watch what they want when they want.

Yes. For a price. And I have trouble thinking of anyone I know who owns a computer but NOT a TV. The idiot box might be slowly disappearing but it's not gone and it shouldn't be assumed it will ever go away. TV supplanted radio, but radio still exists and has a niche.

Accordingly, the FCC has granted broadcasters permission to evolve to a next generation digital standard. When broadcasters roll out that technology, will the government protect the owners of the current government-subsidized converter boxes?

Since, by that time, a lot of the current set ups will have been replaced there might not be a need - but they might need a new convert box between the two digital standards.

And if the government must subsidize or protect all Americans from any law that reduces the value of their assets, what about the companies that bid $19 billion to start using on February 17, 2009 the sliver of the analog spectrum the broadcasters are giving up?

They took a risk by purchasing a new asset that was not free to use immediately. Businesses do this all the time and aren't routinely protected. Then again, when as asset turns out not to be so valuable they can use it as a loss when calculating their taxes.

And let's not forget how quickly members of Congress have forgotten 9/11 and the 9/11 Commission's urgent and influential plea to complete the digital TV transition for the sake of public safety, which was to receive 24 MHz of the 108 MHz of spectrum freed up at the end of the transition. Members of Congress were never very fearful of the wireless broadband constituency, which rarely even knew its own interests. But if catering to the broadcast lobby meant that fire and police couldn't effectively communicate in a 9/11 type incident, then the political equation seemed quite different. Memories of 9/11 have long since faded. But if between February 17, 2009 and the newly proposed June 12, 2009 deadline there is a new 9/11 with its attendant public safety communications disaster, we'll know who to blame.

So... is what he saying that if we subsidize converter boxes for impoverished senior citizens the terrorists have won! ????

Of course, delaying use of the TV white spaces was a political no-brainer for members of Congress because no Americans yet have the unlicensed wireless devices that will occupy the white spaces;

So... if no one is using it what's the harm of broadcasting on that slice for one month?

Will it fulfill its campaign's pledge to seek the changes necessary to quickly bring about a broadband future for all?

Dude, you forgot to add "... who can afford monthly cable or satellite charges, or a brand new TV."

Personally, I'm OK with the Feb 17 date. It has to happen sometime and waiting another 3 months will make little difference as the coupons are gone and anyone signing up for them is put on a waiting list and may never receive them. We also got our crap together and got our coupon and box. If there was actually more coupons still available an additional three months might be different, but as it stand three more months will do jackshit.

[Edi]

The web TV bit is complete bullshit. You need a minimum of a 10 Mbit/s internet connection to watch one channel with good quality TV and if a mass number of people did that, it would fuck the service up for everyone. It becomes a capacity problem. It will also cost an assload of money. Trust me on this, my employer rolled out a web TV connection that would have made it possible to watch all of two channels simultaneously if you had the various equipment needed for it and it sucked shit in every conceivable way. It was quietly killed a few months ago.

It also does not surprise me in the least that the US has tried to go it alone with a separate standard of digital TV from the rest of the world, which is just going to fuck things up for consumers.

That Ars Technica article most certainly does not impress me. Rather, it gives me the impression the writer doesn't know what the fuck he is on about for a substantial part of it when he touts how easy it would be to do, just wave a magic wand. Didn't fucking happen that way here and we only had a country of 5 million to do this in, plus we had halfway competent setup for the system. Even then it had its fuckups. With the clusterfuck that is the US Congress and the various regulatory agencies and lobby groups, there is no way that transition is not going to be fucked up the ass, no matter how it's done and when.

[Kanastrous]

They have this access for a price. A monthly price. Basic satellite or cable starts at around $80/month in my area. That's more money than I spend on food and gas in a week. What he is saying is that people have potential access if they have the money to spare, but the most needy families, those who can't spare those bucks for monthly service don't deserve access. Fuck them, they don't need to get local news, traffic information, weather, low-cost entertainment, public service announcements, and screw them, they don't deserve to watch things like yesterday's historical inauguration.

In terms of getting truly essential information - like emergency weather warnings, etc - there's radio.

As far as opportunities for watching historical events, radio is a perfectly adequate substitute - it's not just people unable to afford TV service who missed watching the inaugural; I own a television and didn't watch, because I was at work.

By law, too, all new TV sets sold in the last few years have had to include special tuners to pick up the digital TV signals broadcast terrestrially, over-the-air by local TV stations. But some Americans nevertheless rely on analog, terrestrial, over-the-air reception to pick up their local TV stations.

Right. Because why should I throw out my functional TV and purchase a new one when a $40 box extends the use of my functional TV another decade? Especially since I'm on such a restricted budget.

TV's a luxury. And I make my living in part producing material for it; I don't have a motive for wanting fewer people watching, I'd be served by more people watching. But - maybe this is a failure of imagination on my part - I don't see a necessity for having a television, so long as radio is available.

As of December 2008, approximately 6 percent of U.S. residences, including vacation residences

Which neatly ignores all the senior citizens on a fixed budget for whom buying a new TV or subscribing to cable would impose hardship. Let's make this look like a problem of spoiled rich people instead of cutting off the lowest strata of citizens from part of our common culture.

I wonder how much of a favor one is really doing, by further insinuating that 'common culture' into their homes. I certainly understand and respect that they might want it, and don't get jollies from seeing it denied, but is most of the crapola we put on the air really that valuable, for everybody to see?

But why should the government subsidize a consumer's obsolete fifteen-year-old $100 color TV and not his obsolete four-year-old computer?

Because the government is rendering that TV useless whereas the four year computer is still functional?

By legislative fiat 'the government' can and has rendered some people's investment in certain kinds if firearms useless (by criminalizing their ownership save for onerous and impractical fees and restrictions). I'm not advocating for unrestricted ownership of machine guns; just pointing out that those people weren't offered compensation for the effective obsoleting of their ownership of something, too. Maybe their being a comparatively small minority, and the items at issue being more controversial makes that more palatable.

The most common answer is that the situation is different in this case because the government is mandating the transition. But imposing costs on Americans via government regulation and taxes—including mandated technological transitions— is as American as apple pie.

On the other hand, there is the concept that the poor should not be as heavily taxed as the wealthy. And in any case, tradition does not equal moral correctness.

The poor and the wealthy are subject to the same rates of sales and property taxes. Maybe that fails because those are state rather than Federal taxes...and the cost of the transition impresses me as an optional cost, in the sense that television is not a vital service but rather primarily a conduit for advertising and entertainment.

When the government forced horses off the roads to make way for cars, it did not subsidize the horse owners.

Nor did they pick an arbitrary day to go out and shoot all the horses. The transition occurred over decades during which cars slowly replaced horses. If the government said "you can no longer sell analog TVs" and allowed attrition to replace analog with digital that would be comparable to cars replacing horses.

It bears research, but at least in some places it seems likely that there was at some point a date by which horses were barred from using major roads. And haven't retailers naturally been transitioning to stocks of digital TVs over the last several years, already? The ones around here have; YMMV.

The same pattern holds in other democracies. When the model for the U.S. digital TV transition, Berlin, Germany, underwent its government mandated digital TV transition, the subsidy to analog TV set owners was restricted solely to the poor.

Which, arguably, should have been done here - subsidize the poor who couldn't afford buying new TV's or being forced to buy cable services.

Of all the things to spend money on in the interest of assisting the poor, cheaper TV seems like one of the least productive expenditures imaginable.

If Congress sets aside more money for digital TV coupons, this time the money should be directed to the poor, not billionaires.

This is the only part of his screed I agree with. Although then there's the problem of proving need, which will also impose costs on the system.

Again, if we're going to allocate money to help poor people with something, TV service seems like it ought to be a relatively low priority.

Congress is now using the converter box subsidy as yet one more method to prop up this obsolete but politically powerful industry. Cable and satellite are much more efficient ways to deliver broadcasting.

IF you can afford them!

They're basically luxuries. Luxuries are more or less by definition things in which you responsibly indulge, only if you can afford them. Around my house, in times of serious crunch the satellite service is the first thing to go. And our over-the-air reception here, is for crap, too.

But the future doesn't even belong to broadcasting: Americans increasingly want TV via broadband (also known as Web TV), which offers millions of times more viewing options, including the power to watch what they want when they want.

Yes. For a price. And I have trouble thinking of anyone I know who owns a computer but NOT a TV. The idiot box might be slowly disappearing but it's not gone and it shouldn't be assumed it will ever go away. TV supplanted radio, but radio still exists and has a niche.

I'd back subsidized internet access before I'd back subsidized TV access. At least there are practical, educational and commercial benefits one can obtain from an internet connection, that don't come with TV service.

And if the government must subsidize or protect all Americans from any law that reduces the value of their assets, what about the companies that bid $19 billion to start using on February 17, 2009 the sliver of the analog spectrum the broadcasters are giving up?

They took a risk by purchasing a new asset that was not free to use immediately. Businesses do this all the time and aren't routinely protected. Then again, when as asset turns out not to be so valuable they can use it as a loss when calculating their taxes.

That's entirely fair.

So... is what he saying that if we subsidize converter boxes for impoverished senior citizens the terrorists have won! ????

Why do you hate freedom?

Will it fulfill its campaign's pledge to seek the changes necessary to quickly bring about a broadband future for all?

Dude, you forgot to add "... who can afford monthly cable or satellite charges, or a brand new TV."

A broadband future for all encompassing internet access sounds valuable. A future for all that merely widens or maintains the penetration of crap TV broadcasting doesn't sound nearly as exciting.

[phongn]

The web TV bit is complete bullshit. You need a minimum of a 10 Mbit/s internet connection to watch one channel with good quality TV and if a mass number of people did that, it would fuck the service up for everyone. It becomes a capacity problem. It will also cost an assload of money. Trust me on this, my employer rolled out a web TV connection that would have made it possible to watch all of two channels simultaneously if you had the various equipment needed for it and it sucked shit in every conceivable way. It was quietly killed a few months ago.

IPTV is being rolled out various regions of the US with considerable technical success (AT&T U-Verse, Verizon FiOS). Even for "true" WebTV services such as Hulu, I can stream a 480p video just fine with rather less than six megabits.

It also does not surprise me in the least that the US has tried to go it alone with a separate standard of digital TV from the rest of the world, which is just going to fuck things up for consumers.

There are specific technical reasons for the adoption of ATSC over other standards like ISDB-T or DVB-T.

[Broomstick]

In terms of getting truly essential information - like emergency weather warnings, etc - there's radio.

I don't see the utility in cutting off an avenue of information. Also, TV can provide information in a graphic format radio can't - such as displaying a map of affected areas.

Aside from that - radio does not usually have the half-hour and hour-long formats of news and information that TV does. Most radio "news" is two minutes of sound bites. That's even worse than broadcast news. The idea that they are equivalent is ludicrous.

As far as opportunities for watching historical events, radio is a perfectly adequate substitute - it's not just people unable to afford TV service who missed watching the inaugural; I own a television and didn't watch, because I was at work.

No that is not an adequate substitute - you can HEAR radio, you can not SEE it. To maintain that listening to an event is equivalent to watching it is ludicrous.

Right. Because why should I throw out my functional TV and purchase a new one when a $40 box extends the use of my functional TV another decade? Especially since I'm on such a restricted budget.

TV's a luxury. And I make my living in part producing material for it; I don't have a motive for wanting fewer people watching, I'd be served by more people watching. But - maybe this is a failure of imagination on my part - I don't see a necessity for having a television, so long as radio is available.

As I said - why should I be forced to discard a FUNCTIONAL TV? Even if I don't replace it, the analog TV has been rendered useless.

And the idea that poor people should live an entirely deprived life is pernicious and toxic. It is not mentally healthy for people to do nothing but work or stare at the walls, leisure pursuits are part of a balanced life. Entertainment options are already sharply limited for the poor, why further constrain them? Even worse, you're taking away one of the few luxuries of poor for the profit of corporations Once again, society is placing the needs of business above the needs of people.

Which neatly ignores all the senior citizens on a fixed budget for whom buying a new TV or subscribing to cable would impose hardship. Let's make this look like a problem of spoiled rich people instead of cutting off the lowest strata of citizens from part of our common culture.

I wonder how much of a favor one is really doing, by further insinuating that 'common culture' into their homes. I certainly understand and respect that they might want it, and don't get jollies from seeing it denied, but is most of the crapola we put on the air really that valuable, for everybody to see?

How very patronizing for you to unilaterally decide what poor people should and shouldn't watch. Perhaps we should have a cabal of millionaires decide what YOU are permitted to watch? It is not up to you to decide what people should watch in a free society. It is up to them - whether you approve of their choices or not.

But why should the government subsidize a consumer's obsolete fifteen-year-old $100 color TV and not his obsolete four-year-old computer?

Because the government is rendering that TV useless whereas the four year computer is still functional?

By legislative fiat 'the government' can and has rendered some people's investment in certain kinds if firearms useless (by criminalizing their ownership save for onerous and impractical fees and restrictions). I'm not advocating for unrestricted ownership of machine guns; just pointing out that those people weren't offered compensation for the effective obsoleting of their ownership of something, too. Maybe their being a comparatively small minority, and the items at issue being more controversial makes that more palatable.

A TV is far less likely to kill someone than a gun - TV's are inherently less dangerous as objects and tools. Sure, you could drop one on your foot and break a toe, but that is an extraordinarily rare use of a TV. Thus, there is more justification for regulation and restriction of guns than of TVs.

Beyond that, the excuse "because we've done that before" does not make an action right. What would that be, not appeal to authority but appeal to tradition?

On the other hand, there is the concept that the poor should not be as heavily taxed as the wealthy. And in any case, tradition does not equal moral correctness.

The poor and the wealthy are subject to the same rates of sales and property taxes. Maybe that fails because those are state rather than Federal taxes...and the cost of the transition impresses me as an optional cost, in the sense that television is not a vital service but rather primarily a conduit for advertising and entertainment.

Two flaws - first of all, since the poor purchase fewer things they actually do pay less in sales taxes and property taxes. In addition, in some states, such as Michigan, there is no tax on food items so if poor folks pretty much only paid rent and bought food their tax rate would be extremely low.

Second, yes, sales and property taxes are a state level cost and the analog to digital conversion is a Federal mandate so I do think it's apples to oranges.

When the government forced horses off the roads to make way for cars, it did not subsidize the horse owners.

Nor did they pick an arbitrary day to go out and shoot all the horses. The transition occurred over decades during which cars slowly replaced horses. If the government said "you can no longer sell analog TVs" and allowed attrition to replace analog with digital that would be comparable to cars replacing horses.

It bears research, but at least in some places it seems likely that there was at some point a date by which horses were barred from using major roads.

I suppose it's how you define "major roads". The interstate system, from its inception, has banned all but certain types of motor vehicles but one does not have to use the interstates in order to travel, even coast to coast. Downtown Chicago still has horse-drawn carriages - granted they're for tourists but they share such major thoroughfares as Michigan Avenue and State Street with motor vehicles. In my area it is certainly legal to ride horses along the road and people do. I've rented horses for riding from a local stable and used a two-lane state highway to get to park with riding trails. And don't tell the Amish about 20 miles east of me they can't drive their horses along the road, because they certainly do. In fact, there's a Wal-Mart that has a horse barn to accommodate them. So no, horses are not universally banned from the roads. They're banned from interstates, but so are bicycles, mopeds, and other vehicles that can not meet the requisite speed requirements.

And haven't retailers naturally been transitioning to stocks of digital TVs over the last several years, already? The ones around here have; YMMV.

In my area the transition started with the big-screen TVs - it was only around two yearsago that the more modest sized digital TV's started appearing - which is why our TV isn't digital. When our old one died three years ago we looked for a digital replacement but could not find one other than the huge screen TV's which were out of our price range by several thousand dollars. So by being fiscally prudent back then we would up needing a converter box now - or are you arguing that because we weren't willing to spend 10K two years ago when we could get a serviceable TV for $120 we should be forced to toss our TV for a new one now? Even if we had not had a subsidized converter box we'd still be money ahead by making the choice we did.

So no, there hasn't been much of a transition window at least in my area, and I can only assume that this has been the case in other areas. Perhaps if we lived closer to Chicago proper we would have had a broader selection, but we don't.

Which, arguably, should have been done here - subsidize the poor who couldn't afford buying new TV's or being forced to buy cable services.

Of all the things to spend money on in the interest of assisting the poor, cheaper TV seems like one of the least productive expenditures imaginable.

Let's be real here - the US just doesn't want to spend anything on the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill. Seriously, the ideal seems to be people sitting in a barely heated room with no decoration, no entertainment, and subsisting on rice and beans for eternity. Yes, watching TV is a luxury. So is eating meat. When you have very little then what little, small luxuries you have start to become more important.

Congress is now using the converter box subsidy as yet one more method to prop up this obsolete but politically powerful industry. Cable and satellite are much more efficient ways to deliver broadcasting.

IF you can afford them!

They're basically luxuries. Luxuries are more or less by definition things in which you responsibly indulge, only if you can afford them. Around my house, in times of serious crunch the satellite service is the first thing to go. And our over-the-air reception here, is for crap, too.

Bully for you - that's YOUR choice. Who are you to determine someone else's priorities? Perhaps a family will give up meat in order to keep the paltry entertainment represented by broadcast television. Perhaps someone prefers TV to radio. Perhaps getting to the library for books is difficult so a family uses TV for entertainment rather than reading.

Last time I was poor I gave up having a car - a choice many Americans would refuse to, decreeing a personal vehicle a necessity. The thing is, when a person only has so much money THEY have to decide what is and isn't important. It is seldom that someone is so very poor they can afford NO entertainment whatsoever, but they have to make choices. One person might choose to forgo TV and instead see a movie in a theater once a month. Who am I to question that, who are you to question that, provided they can meet their minimum obligations? My parents decided to get a subscription to Netflix instead of a converter box or cable. Fine. That's their choice - emphasis on the last two words. (They also happen to live in an area where getting real news over the radio is an option) Someone else might choose the exact opposite. Why are we limiting peoples' choices?

But the future doesn't even belong to broadcasting: Americans increasingly want TV via broadband (also known as Web TV), which offers millions of times more viewing options, including the power to watch what they want when they want.

Yes. For a price. And I have trouble thinking of anyone I know who owns a computer but NOT a TV. The idiot box might be slowly disappearing but it's not gone and it shouldn't be assumed it will ever go away. TV supplanted radio, but radio still exists and has a niche.

I'd back subsidized internet access before I'd back subsidized TV access. At least there are practical, educational and commercial benefits one can obtain from an internet connection, that don't come with TV service.

Except that merely having an internet connection won't get you on-line - you also need a computer. And a computer still costs more than a TV+converter box. You're still taking away and giving nothing in return. Until one can TRULY get internet access for the amount of a cheap TV that's no a viable trade.

(I am also fortunate that my local library allows up to 4 hours of internet access a day 7 days a week to anyone with a card at no charge, and longer sessions can be arranged. This, however, is not universal across the US. Regardless, we actually DO have subsidized internet access at least in some areas even today.)

Will it fulfill its campaign's pledge to seek the changes necessary to quickly bring about a broadband future for all?

Dude, you forgot to add "... who can afford monthly cable or satellite charges, or a brand new TV."

A broadband future for all encompassing internet access sounds valuable. A future for all that merely widens or maintains the penetration of crap TV broadcasting doesn't sound nearly as exciting.

I can agree that full internet access for all is a good thing - I am fortunate that, with my current computer, the internet is my plaything. We would give up TV before internet, but then we already have a computer up to the task.

But arguing we shouldn't have TV because broadcast is crap is ridiculous. Cable/satellite is also largely crap percentage wise. A lot of the internet is crap. Apparently, when it comes to entertainment crap sells. I certainly don't always want something deep and penetrating, sometimes, yeah, I just want light, fluffy crap. So, apparently, do most other people. By eliminating it you're depriving the producers of crap of a livelihood, which isn't good for a capitalist economy, now is it?

[Kanastrous]

In terms of getting truly essential information - like emergency weather warnings, etc - there's radio.

I don't see the utility in cutting off an avenue of information. Also, TV can provide information in a graphic format radio can't - such as displaying a map of affected areas.

Graphics are handy but not essential in conveying important information. Better <> Necessary. And, tv (for practical purposes of conveying information) is little more than radio-with-pictures. Take away the image, and you can still convey whatever important information you need to convey (or unimportant information, for that matter). Take away audio, and you have very little, if anything. In fact, for purposes of disseminating important information fastest, radio is the way to go because moving the information from teletype (or whatever alternate channel is preferred, now; I last worked in radio during the 1980s) to microphone involves less resources and time than moving it into a tv news studio for broadcast, even in terms of 'impromptu-breaking-news' type coverage.

Aside from that - radio does not usually have the half-hour and hour-long formats of news and information that TV does. Most radio "news" is two minutes of sound bites. That's even worse than broadcast news. The idea that they are equivalent is ludicrous.

Public radio stations/CPB and NPR, talk/news stations and various shortwave outlets (a basic shortwave receiver still being cheaper than a cheap tv) offer a whole lot of half-hour and half-hour-plus news and analysis programming. I'd suggest that radio news coverage is better on average than televised news, because radio can run with a story based upon content, while tv news outlets consistently choose stories based in large part upon the available images. Plus the aforementioned shorter time-to-air possible, in radio.

As far as opportunities for watching historical events, radio is a perfectly adequate substitute - it's not just people unable to afford TV service who missed watching the inaugural; I own a television and didn't watch, because I was at work.

No that is not an adequate substitute - you can HEAR radio, you can not SEE it. To maintain that listening to an event is equivalent to watching it is ludicrous.

What do you gain, in terms of information or useful content, from watching an event as opposed to listening to it? Sure, a fiery plane crash or a baseball game isn't the same thing, but frankly the important content of, say, the inauguration was what was said, not what could be seen.

Avert your eyes from the tv during an important broadcast, and you'll likely come away with about the same degree of useful information, from listening to the audio. Turn off the sound while watching, and what are you likely to learn? The useful information content of the audio and video streams are not equivalent; the important stuff is far more likely to be what you hear.

I don't think that the people who listened to the inauguration missed anything of importance, compared to the people who watched it. If there's some element missed that actually impacted the news and information value of the radio broadcast, I'm interested in what you would say that was. Simply seeing the color of the First Lady's dress, or the degree of congestion on the Mall, is not important in any newsworthy way.

TV's a luxury. And I make my living in part producing material for it; I don't have a motive for wanting fewer people watching, I'd be served by more people watching. But - maybe this is a failure of imagination on my part - I don't see a necessity for having a television, so long as radio is available.

As I said - why should I be forced to discard a FUNCTIONAL TV? Even if I don't replace it, the analog TV has been rendered useless.

You can still use it for watching video on DVDs or tapes. It's not useless; it's simply more constrained in its use. And you have not been cut off from news, commentary, contact via media with the outside world; you simply wind up listening to words rather than listening to words while watching pictures. I'm not suggesting that might not suck; I'm suggesting that it's not a matter of necessity.

And the idea that poor people should live an entirely deprived life is pernicious and toxic.

Sure. I hardly see subtraction of television as 'an entirely deprived life.' Particularly when our standard for deprived presently encompasses being deprived of things like food, heating oil, medical care and political enfranchisement. With deprivation like that still unaddressed, unavailability of mere television isn't even on the radar.

It is not mentally healthy for people to do nothing but work or stare at the walls, leisure pursuits are part of a balanced life. Entertainment options are already sharply limited for the poor, why further constrain them? Even worse, you're taking away one of the few luxuries of poor for the profit of corporations Once again, society is placing the needs of business above the needs of people.

How did people - poor, wealthy and in-between - manage, before the historically recent advent of television? Heck, until the 1950s-60s, most American households didn't even *have* one. While other household technologies are likewise comparatively recent (gas/oil/electrical heating, AC power, refrigeration, etc) television does not remotely compare in terms of promoting safety and quality-of-life.

I wonder how much of a favor one is really doing, by further insinuating that 'common culture' into their homes. I certainly understand and respect that they might want it, and don't get jollies from seeing it denied, but is most of the crapola we put on the air really that valuable, for everybody to see?

How very patronizing for you to unilaterally decide what poor people should and shouldn't watch.

I don't believe that there is much of *anything* so important and vital to be seen on tv, that anybody *needs* to watch it. Since poor people by definition have urgent needs that they are having difficulty fulfilling, resources earmarked for helping them out shouldn't be expended on frivolities. Do you feel that the restrictions on how food stamps may be used, are 'patronizing' poor people by unilaterally deciding that intoxicants and tobacco aren't proper uses for the money? I mean, how dare we?

Perhaps we should have a cabal of millionaires decide what YOU are permitted to watch?

We *do* have a cabal of millionaires (well, billionaires, quite a few of them) who decide what we collectively get to watch. Welcome to Hollywood. And the FCC.

It is not up to you to decide what people should watch in a free society. It is up to them - whether you approve of their choices or not.

It's up to me as a voter in a free society, to promote my view on whether or not we should expend money on hardware to enable the watching of anything at all, or not. I'm not suggesting that people unable to afford tv service should be restricted to watching some programs, and not others. I'm suggesting that money spent on furnishing them with TVs is money better spent elsewhere, period. Owning a television is not a protected right; if you can't afford one it's like any other optional non-vital accessory that one can't afford.

By legislative fiat 'the government' can and has rendered some people's investment in certain kinds if firearms useless (by criminalizing their ownership save for onerous and impractical fees and restrictions). I'm not advocating for unrestricted ownership of machine guns; just pointing out that those people weren't offered compensation for the effective obsoleting of their ownership of something, too. Maybe their being a comparatively small minority, and the items at issue being more controversial makes that more palatable.

A TV is far less likely to kill someone than a gun - TV's are inherently less dangerous as objects and tools. Sure, you could drop one on your foot and break a toe, but that is an extraordinarily rare use of a TV. Thus, there is more justification for regulation and restriction of guns than of TVs.

My point was really that the gun owners were going uncompensated for the consequences of the new rules, when the rules came into play. Why should one group go uncompensated, while another group gets checks?

Beyond that, the excuse "because we've done that before" does not make an action right. What would that be, not appeal to authority but appeal to tradition?

Appeal to Tradition, I would guess. Have to give you this one.

The poor and the wealthy are subject to the same rates of sales and property taxes. Maybe that fails because those are state rather than Federal taxes...and the cost of the transition impresses me as an optional cost, in the sense that television is not a vital service but rather primarily a conduit for advertising and entertainment.

Two flaws - first of all, since the poor purchase fewer things they actually do pay less in sales taxes and property taxes. In addition, in some states, such as Michigan, there is no tax on food items so if poor folks pretty much only paid rent and bought food their tax rate would be extremely low.

Second, yes, sales and property taxes are a state level cost and the analog to digital conversion is a Federal mandate so I do think it's apples to oranges.

Still, the principle remains the same: in some arenas poor and wealthy are subject to the same rules. States mandate things, too.

Nor did they pick an arbitrary day to go out and shoot all the horses. The transition occurred over decades during which cars slowly replaced horses. If the government said "you can no longer sell analog TVs" and allowed attrition to replace analog with digital that would be comparable to cars replacing horses.

It bears research, but at least in some places it seems likely that there was at some point a date by which horses were barred from using major roads.

I suppose it's how you define "major roads". The interstate system, from its inception, has banned all but certain types of motor vehicles but one does not have to use the interstates in order to travel, even coast to coast. Downtown Chicago still has horse-drawn carriages - granted they're for tourists but they share such major thoroughfares as Michigan Avenue and State Street with motor vehicles. In my area it is certainly legal to ride horses along the road and people do. I've rented horses for riding from a local stable and used a two-lane state highway to get to park with riding trails. And don't tell the Amish about 20 miles east of me they can't drive their horses along the road, because they certainly do. In fact, there's a Wal-Mart that has a horse barn to accommodate them. So no, horses are not universally banned from the roads. They're banned from interstates, but so are bicycles, mopeds, and other vehicles that can not meet the requisite speed requirements.

Okay. I probably have to concede this one, too.

Of all the things to spend money on in the interest of assisting the poor, cheaper TV seems like one of the least productive expenditures imaginable.

Let's be real here - the US just doesn't want to spend anything on the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill. Seriously, the ideal seems to be people sitting in a barely heated room with no decoration, no entertainment, and subsisting on rice and beans for eternity.

That being the case, tv still looks like a frivolous expenditure, since we agree that resources for assisting the poor are already too constrained to begin with.

Yes, watching TV is a luxury. So is eating meat. When you have very little then what little, small luxuries you have start to become more important.

I'm not debating that people might well feel good about having a tv to watch. That doesn't make it something worth subsidizing.

They're basically luxuries. Luxuries are more or less by definition things in which you responsibly indulge, only if you can afford them. Around my house, in times of serious crunch the satellite service is the first thing to go. And our over-the-air reception here, is for crap, too.

Bully for you - that's YOUR choice.

It's precisely the same choice for me, as it is for any hypothetical poorer household making the same decision: not enough money at hand, need to cut superfluous expenses, tv is just about the definition of superfluous, tv gets cut. If someone else finds something more superfluous in their budget to cut, good for them.

Who are you to determine someone else's priorities?

Who are *you*, to determine anyone's priorities, in this matter? I thought we were discussing our respective opinions; if I'm not supposed to have one then the conversation is more a waste of time, than most.

Perhaps a family will give up meat in order to keep the paltry entertainment represented by broadcast television.

I think someone who chooses tv-watching over nutrition has warped priorities. YMMV. If you have an argument supporting tv-watching being more important than nutrition, I'll certainly read it.

Perhaps someone prefers TV to radio.

If they can afford to indulge that preference, that's fine. It's not of sufficient importance to fund publicly. I prefer driving Lamborghinis to driving Volkswagens, but I don't expect anyone to finance my Lamborghini when there's a Volkswagen in my price range; Lamborghini=TV/Volkswagen=Radio.

Perhaps getting to the library for books is difficult so a family uses TV for entertainment rather than reading.

I'd fund bookmobiles before I would subsidize tv. Again, YMMV.

Last time I was poor I gave up having a car - a choice many Americans would refuse to, decreeing a personal vehicle a necessity.

In some places, they verge on a practical necessity. I know people in LA who are carless and dependent upon the public-transit system. It's severely constrained their efforts to even find better-paying work, so as to get to the point where they could afford the car.

The thing is, when a person only has so much money THEY have to decide what is and isn't important.

Okay. That doesn't mean that as a taxpayer I have to agree with their priorities, much less finance them. When I'm short on funds - or, frankly, devoid of funds - I certainly don't expect others to finance my luxuries. Heck, I can't even expect anyone else to underwrite what I regard as my necessities.

It is seldom that someone is so very poor they can afford NO entertainment whatsoever, but they have to make choices. One person might choose to forgo TV and instead see a movie in a theater once a month. Who am I to question that, who are you to question that, provided they can meet their minimum obligations?

We get to question as soon as we're being tapped to help foot the bill.

My parents decided to get a subscription to Netflix instead of a converter box or cable. Fine. That's their choice - emphasis on the last two words. (They also happen to live in an area where getting real news over the radio is an option) Someone else might choose the exact opposite. Why are we limiting peoples' choices?

Reluctance to finance people's choices <> limiting people's choices. Heck, I'd like to choose to visit the ISS. Why should people limit my choices by failing to front me the $$$ to buy a seat on a Soyuz?

I'd back subsidized internet access before I'd back subsidized TV access. At least there are practical, educational and commercial benefits one can obtain from an internet connection, that don't come with TV service.

Except that merely having an internet connection won't get you on-line - you also need a computer. And a computer still costs more than a TV+converter box.

Subsidizing the purchase price of a connectable computer still impresses me as a better use of finds, than subsidizing tv. It may cost more (although I don't know that a refurbbed older machine would cost much more) but the potential return is so much greater that it may be worth it.

A broadband future for all encompassing internet access sounds valuable. A future for all that merely widens or maintains the penetration of crap TV broadcasting doesn't sound nearly as exciting.

I can agree that full internet access for all is a good thing - I am fortunate that, with my current computer, the internet is my plaything. We would give up TV before internet, but then we already have a computer up to the task.

But arguing we shouldn't have TV because broadcast is crap is ridiculous.

I didn't argue that we shouldn't have it; I'm arguing that it's not something to subsidize. Certainly not when resources are already too limited and poorer people have housing, food, medical and educational needs beside which tv pales into irrelevance.

Cable/satellite is also largely crap percentage wise.

Yes.

A lot of the internet is crap.

Sure. Yet it's also true that the educational potential of an internet connection is exponentially greater than the educational potential of a tv receiver or cable box.

Apparently, when it comes to entertainment crap sells.

Not just entertainment. But, yeah.

I certainly don't always want something deep and penetrating, sometimes, yeah, I just want light, fluffy crap. So, apparently, do most other people.

Desire <> entitlement. I can comprehend arguments that a survival necessity is an entitlement. TV programming is not a survival necessity, and is therefore not an entitlement.

By eliminating it you're depriving the producers of crap of a livelihood, which isn't good for a capitalist economy, now is it?

I never suggested eliminating it; you must be thinking of someone else. I did suggest that, since it's largely fluff and crap and mere entertainment - and not the only available form of entertainment, most of the time - it's not sufficiently important or vital enough to be worth subsidizing, particularly when books and radio are cheap and widely available - and when there is no shortage of people who *can* afford the frivolous expense of viewing it, meaning there's no real danger of the crap-producers losing their livelihoods.

[Edi]

IPTV is being rolled out various regions of the US with considerable technical success (AT&T U-Verse, Verizon FiOS). Even for "true" WebTV services such as Hulu, I can stream a 480p video just fine with rather less than six megabits.

How widespread is it and what are the implications if it were to be taken up by the majority of people in said regions? I'm curious about how this would work, given what I've seen of an unsuccessful implementation.

There are specific technical reasons for the adoption of ATSC over other standards like ISDB-T or DVB-T.

I'll take your word for that.

[Broomstick]

Graphics are handy but not essential in conveying important information. Better <> Necessary.

On the other hand, better is better. Why should the poor rely on a substandard means of communication?

And, tv (for practical purposes of conveying information) is little more than radio-with-pictures. Take away the image, and you can still convey whatever important information you need to convey (or unimportant information, for that matter).

I disagree, a great deal of weather information is really best presented in a visual manner. Yes, text or audio can convey it but not as fast as graphics can.

Take away audio, and you have very little, if anything.

Gee, maybe that's why for critical information such as storm warnings the audio is supplemented by a crawl on-screen?

Which reminds me - the deaf and hard of hearing don't get much utility out of radio. They truly are much more reliant on TV (preferably with closed-captioning) than the rest of us. Should they be left out in the cold, too? When you consider that the income of the average deaf person is significantly less than the average hearing person a little help for them becomes more critical.

Public radio stations/CPB and NPR, talk/news stations and various shortwave outlets (a basic shortwave receiver still being cheaper than a cheap tv) offer a whole lot of half-hour and half-hour-plus news and analysis programming. I'd suggest that radio news coverage is better on average than televised news, because radio can run with a story based upon content, while tv news outlets consistently choose stories based in large part upon the available images. Plus the aforementioned shorter time-to-air possible, in radio.

Is NPR available everywhere? I seem to recall that where my in-laws live it isn't - you have country and western music or religious bullshit. If you want any sort of broadcast news TV is your only option.

What do you gain, in terms of information or useful content, from watching an event as opposed to listening to it? Sure, a fiery plane crash or a baseball game isn't the same thing, but frankly the important content of, say, the inauguration was what was said, not what could be seen.

Well, as I am a bit of an airplane crash junkie (actually, a disaster junkie) I'd have to say that "audio only" DOES leave out a good chunk of information. Traffic broadcasts where they show you a back up can be useful in judging where alternates should be taken. Images of large fires can alert you to detours you should take. The enjoyment of ball games and the like IS significantly impacted with audio-only.

And maybe what was visible during the inaugauration had no meaning for you, but it did for me - seeing that large a crowd, and that multi-ethnic a crowd, did magnify the experience for me in a way that audio-only simply would not. There is also the idea that I should know what the people holding high office in my country look like. That information is not essential to existence but failure to recognize the PotUS because you've never seen his face would definitely make one look foolish. Perhaps you will rebut saying "newspapers" or "internet" but for someone for whom purchasing a $40 converter box is a hardship a newspaper subscription or internet access is unlikely.

I'm interested in what you would say that was. Simply seeing the color of the First Lady's dress, or the degree of congestion on the Mall, is not important in any newsworthy way.

According to YOU - to other people those ARE important pieces of information. You're just advocating a different form of censorship here, saying the poor do not deserve to see events as well as hear of them.

You can still use it for watching video on DVDs or tapes. It's not useless; it's simply more constrained in its use.

Why do you assume that merely because someone owns a TV they also own a tape or DVD player? Or even any tapes or DVDs? TVs do not always have such features, and not everyone has purchased such add ons.

It is not mentally healthy for people to do nothing but work or stare at the walls, leisure pursuits are part of a balanced life. Entertainment options are already sharply limited for the poor, why further constrain them? Even worse, you're taking away one of the few luxuries of poor for the profit of corporations Once again, society is placing the needs of business above the needs of people.

How did people - poor, wealthy and in-between - manage, before the historically recent advent of television? Heck, until the 1950s-60s, most American households didn't even *have* one. While other household technologies are likewise comparatively recent (gas/oil/electrical heating, AC power, refrigeration, etc) television does not remotely compare in terms of promoting safety and quality-of-life.

Prior to the advent of mass TV watching adult clubs were much more prominent in life. These ranged from the Masons, Elks, Lions, etc. to causal card nights and get-togethers. These forms of social entertainment are not nearly as common as they used to be, and in some areas non-existent. Due to a cultural shift many options previously available simply no longer exist.

I wonder how much of a favor one is really doing, by further insinuating that 'common culture' into their homes. I certainly understand and respect that they might want it, and don't get jollies from seeing it denied, but is most of the crapola we put on the air really that valuable, for everybody to see?

How very patronizing for you to unilaterally decide what poor people should and shouldn't watch.

I don't believe that there is much of *anything* so important and vital to be seen on tv, that anybody *needs* to watch it. Since poor people by definition have urgent needs that they are having difficulty fulfilling, resources earmarked for helping them out shouldn't be expended on frivolities. Do you feel that the restrictions on how food stamps may be used, are 'patronizing' poor people by unilaterally deciding that intoxicants and tobacco aren't proper uses for the money? I mean, how dare we?

What I find patronizing about our current food stamp system is that it forces people onto high-starch diets of poor quality, and essentially forces vegetarianism which, given the fiscal constraints, is unlikely to be of a form that is healthy long-term. Another pernicious aspect of food stamps is that if one attempts to save money in order to improve one's lot one can be summarily yanked off the program. Possessing assets as low as $2,000 in total disqualifies someone from the program. In other words, if you attempt to scrape together enough money to buy a car or enroll in a community college you will suffer an immediate negative impact on your ability to eat. This "helps" people by forcing them to remain poor in order receive any aid at all an actually discourages self-improvement. THAT is what is fundamentally wrong with our current food stamp program, which is even worse than patronizing.

You deem TV a luxury. Therefore, we can assume it has value (after all, people are willing to pay for it, right?) The government is taking away the access to a luxury. It is depriving people of something they already have. In this way it's more like eminent domain. If the government takes property from you, you are to be compensated. If the government deprives you of access to something you've had up until now then compensation to "make whole", that is, to restore access, is not unreasonable particularly given the relatively low cost. We are not, after all, buying new TV's for everyone. We are subsidizing converter boxes that may be hooked up to ANY TV. This is not an on-going subsidy, it's a one-time compensation.

I'm suggesting that money spent on furnishing them with TVs is money better spent elsewhere, period.

We're not buying them TV's, we're buying them converter boxes that are considerably less expensive than TV. This also promotes a public good by enabling further use out of working TV's instead of using them as landfill before it's necessary.

Owning a television is not a protected right; if you can't afford one it's like any other optional non-vital accessory that one can't afford.

And yet... we subsidize mortgages for first-time home buyers. Why? Owning a home is not a necessity. We provide tax breaks to people with children. Why? Having children is not a necessity. We subsidize many things that aren't necessities in order to promote a public good.

There is also the aspect that this government action is taking away something that people currently have - access to broadcast. In general, when you take something the idea of compensation frequently comes in.

My point was really that the gun owners were going uncompensated for the consequences of the new rules, when the rules came into play. Why should one group go uncompensated, while another group gets checks?

Because TV viewing is seen as more positive than gun ownership by the majority who approved this measure. If you don't like it call/write your representatives and let them know how you feel.

Still, the principle remains the same: in some arenas poor and wealthy are subject to the same rules. States mandate things, too.

When TV rules were first set up the broadcast frequencies were held to be something owned collectively by the public. In exchange for exclusive rights broadcasters were required to do certain things such as provide news and public service announcements. Auctioning off TV frequencies to private entities is basically the sale of public property to private interests. TV converter "subsidies" can be seen as a far return to the general public (especially the most needy members) for these sales. Again, related to the idea of compensation for the government taking something. Although the government does not always provide compensation it can be used to justify such things.

That being the case, tv still looks like a frivolous expenditure, since we agree that resources for assisting the poor are already too constrained to begin with.

There is the difference that this is not a on-going entitlement program. It is a one-time compensation for otherwise depriving people of access they already have. Our society seems much more amenable to one-time payments or grants than on-going subsidies.

Yes, watching TV is a luxury. So is eating meat. When you have very little then what little, small luxuries you have start to become more important.

I'm not debating that people might well feel good about having a tv to watch. That doesn't make it something worth subsidizing.

It's not just entertainment, though - broadcasters are required to provide information as well. Subsidizing a means to keep even poor citizens informed is, I believe, a public good. That is also why we subsidize public libraries, after all. But unlike a library with discreet hours, though, a person has access 24/7 to the TV in their home.

It's precisely the same choice for me, as it is for any hypothetical poorer household making the same decision: not enough money at hand, need to cut superfluous expenses, tv is just about the definition of superfluous, tv gets cut. If someone else finds something more superfluous in their budget to cut, good for them.

On the other hand, a household with a hearing impaired person might find cutting off the TV to be more of a problem than you do. Indeed, access to information is one reason that services such as closed captioning is provided. On the flip side, audio equipment for the visually impaired has also been subsidized for quite a long time. The fact that you can easily exist without TV does not mean that for someone else it isn't more important.

Who are you to determine someone else's priorities?

Who are *you*, to determine anyone's priorities, in this matter? I thought we were discussing our respective opinions;

It is not your ability to determine your priorities I am questioning - it is your ability to determine other peoples' priorities. If someone fallen on hard times decides to sell their vehicle and take the bus to work so they can keep their cable TV I may not agree with that decision but I'd think twice before questioning it. On the other hand, if they decide to sell their TV and DVD collection so they can keep driving to work that's also their decision. If TV is someone's only entertainment forcing them to give it up is more of a hardship than if they have multiple other sources of entertainment. It's not right to simply take something from the poor and say "suck it up - you're poor". If something is taken there should be compensation.

Perhaps a family will give up meat in order to keep the paltry entertainment represented by broadcast television.

I think someone who chooses tv-watching over nutrition has warped priorities. YMMV. If you have an argument supporting tv-watching being more important than nutrition, I'll certainly read it.

I said give up "meat", not give up protein. If they want to stop eating dead cow and stick to beans and rice in order to afford a TV that's not necessarily giving up nutrition (they may actually wind up with better nutrition), that's giving up luxury foods. By and large, meat is a luxury. Humans do need a small amount of nutrients naturally available only through animal sources but the actual requirements are smaller than people think. Giving up expensive, unnecessary luxury foods is an entirely legitimate form of budgeting.

Perhaps someone prefers TV to radio.

If they can afford to indulge that preference, that's fine. It's not of sufficient importance to fund publicly. I prefer driving Lamborghinis to driving Volkswagens, but I don't expect anyone to finance my Lamborghini when there's a Volkswagen in my price range[/quote]
On the other hand, if the government confiscates your Lamborghini you would expect compensation, yes? For that matter, if they confiscated your Volkswagen you'd expect something, too, right?

We're not talking about giving initial access to people, we're talking about taking away access they already have.

Perhaps getting to the library for books is difficult so a family uses TV for entertainment rather than reading.

I'd fund bookmobiles before I would subsidize tv. Again, YMMV.

And that is an entirely reasonable position to take. Personally, I am a great fan of public libraries, too.

Last time I was poor I gave up having a car - a choice many Americans would refuse to, decreeing a personal vehicle a necessity.

In some places, they verge on a practical necessity. I know people in LA who are carless and dependent upon the public-transit system. It's severely constrained their efforts to even find better-paying work, so as to get to the point where they could afford the car.

But isn't that similar to the issue regarding TV and information? The US is not uniform. Just as some places a car is much more vital than others, in some areas TV's are much more important for disseminating information than others.

My strongest objection to the coupon program was that there was no needs-testing. They should have been reserved for those most negatively impacted by these changes.

The thing is, when a person only has so much money THEY have to decide what is and isn't important.

Okay. That doesn't mean that as a taxpayer I have to agree with their priorities, much less finance them. When I'm short on funds - or, frankly, devoid of funds - I certainly don't expect others to finance my luxuries. Heck, I can't even expect anyone else to underwrite what I regard as my necessities.[/quote]
On the other hand, if you take something from a poor person shouldn't they receive compensation? Indeed, I'd argue that for those in the lowest economic strata this is even MORE important. When I was middle class I could absorb far larger losses than I can now.

And while you may not expect people to underwrite even your necessities I'd argue that our society should ensure that people do not freeze to death in winter or genuinely starve to death if that could be easily prevented. Thus, subsidizes for heating for the poor (based on need) and programs like food stamps and WIC.

Reluctance to finance people's choices <> limiting people's choices. Heck, I'd like to choose to visit the ISS. Why should people limit my choices by failing to front me the $$$ to buy a seat on a Soyuz?

But, again, in this case we're talking about people who already made the choice to get broadcast TV and already have equipment to do so and the government is taking away that access. Access is being maintained/restored, not initially given, and, again, it is a one-time thing not an on-going program.

I'd back subsidized internet access before I'd back subsidized TV access. At least there are practical, educational and commercial benefits one can obtain from an internet connection, that don't come with TV service.

Except that merely having an internet connection won't get you on-line - you also need a computer. And a computer still costs more than a TV+converter box.

Subsidizing the purchase price of a connectable computer still impresses me as a better use of finds, than subsidizing tv. It may cost more (although I don't know that a refurbbed older machine would cost much more) but the potential return is so much greater that it may be worth it.

If we were in a situation of "converter boxes vs. hardware + internet access" I might be inclined to agree with you, but that's not the situation we currently have. Your option would cost considerably more but the pay off, I think, would be a greater benefit.

Perhaps the difference is that you see no benefit to the converter box program where I see some benefit?

I didn't argue that we shouldn't have it; I'm arguing that it's not something to subsidize.

But we're not so much subsidizing it as compensating people for loss of access/restoring access.

[phongn]

IPTV is being rolled out various regions of the US with considerable technical success (AT&T U-Verse, Verizon FiOS). Even for "true" WebTV services such as Hulu, I can stream a 480p video just fine with rather less than six megabits.

How widespread is it and what are the implications if it were to be taken up by the majority of people in said regions? I'm curious about how this would work, given what I've seen of an unsuccessful implementation.

Both are becoming pretty widespread in the areas where they're an option. There are various options that can be done like multicasting, for example, that greatly reduce bandwidth requirements. In addition, there is more than enough bandwidth in the US to handle IPTV in the backend: it's the last-mile that's a bit problematic and even that is (slowly) being fixed. Further advances in video compression (MPEG-4, H.264, etc.) also greatly reduce the amount of bandwidth needed to deliver content in the last mile.

AT&T's U-Verse is an ASDSL2 solution that pretty much brings a DSLAM right into the neighborhood (though I hear they're starting to go to individual curbs and homes, now) and provides 18 megabits. The system is purely switched digital video, so if you're watching TV it will reduce total available bandwidth. Verizon's FIOS currently only does video-on-demand and pay-per-view via IPTV; "normal" channels are sent over a different wavelength and reconstructed into a standard RF signal read by the set-top box. However, VZ does hope to transition away from that and move to a fully SDV/IPTV system.

[Darth Wong]

In terms of getting truly essential information - like emergency weather warnings, etc - there's radio.

I don't see the utility in cutting off an avenue of information. Also, TV can provide information in a graphic format radio can't - such as displaying a map of affected areas.

Aside from that - radio does not usually have the half-hour and hour-long formats of news and information that TV does. Most radio "news" is two minutes of sound bites. That's even worse than broadcast news. The idea that they are equivalent is ludicrous.

I agree with you that radio is no substitute for TV. Having said that, we must remember what we are talking about here: as of right now, TV stations are not allowed to switch over even if they want to, because the government is forcibly holding them back. That is analogous to what the entire analog-TV market sector is doing to the TV industry: holding the entire industry back because of backward-compatibility concerns. Imagine if Microsoft Windows were mandated by law to maintain DOS compatibility, for older users. The destructive effect of such legislation would have been incalculable.

TV's a luxury. And I make my living in part producing material for it; I don't have a motive for wanting fewer people watching, I'd be served by more people watching. But - maybe this is a failure of imagination on my part - I don't see a necessity for having a television, so long as radio is available.

As I said - why should I be forced to discard a FUNCTIONAL TV? Even if I don't replace it, the analog TV has been rendered useless.

Unfortunately, that is part of the nature of standards-based technology. Once the standard becomes so obsolete that it is effectively a noose, the industry cannot move forward until the old standard is dropped. I do sympathize with the poor, the people who can't use broadband as a substitute because they're rural and can't pay for satellite, etc. However, at some point we do have to ask the question: how long do we intend to tie the TV industry to an ancient standard dating back to 1941?

And why four months? Why not another 10 years? There will never be a point at which we can be assured that 100% of people no longer have old equipment. There will never be a point at which there are no poor people so that everyone can afford better options. At some point, you simply have to "bite the bullet", as they say.

And the idea that poor people should live an entirely deprived life is pernicious and toxic. It is not mentally healthy for people to do nothing but work or stare at the walls, leisure pursuits are part of a balanced life. Entertainment options are already sharply limited for the poor, why further constrain them? Even worse, you're taking away one of the few luxuries of poor for the profit of corporations Once again, society is placing the needs of business above the needs of people.

I care about the plight of the poor, but pitching TV as a necessity just doesn't fly. People found ways to entertain themselves for thousands of years without TV, and would not have to simply sit in a darkened room staring at the walls forever if the TV stopped working. This is not a reasonable outcome prediction.

How very patronizing for you to unilaterally decide what poor people should and shouldn't watch. Perhaps we should have a cabal of millionaires decide what YOU are permitted to watch?

Uhhh, we do have a cabal of millionaires who decide what shows are produced for broadcast TV. That's the situation right now, and always has been.

A TV is far less likely to kill someone than a gun - TV's are inherently less dangerous as objects and tools. Sure, you could drop one on your foot and break a toe, but that is an extraordinarily rare use of a TV. Thus, there is more justification for regulation and restriction of guns than of TVs.

Both guns and TVs should be regulated: guns because they are dangerous devices, and TVs because they are a commercially important standards-based technology. And frankly, you should not complain about TV regulation; it is the only thing currently holding back manufacturers of TVs from ditching the old analog crap.

I suppose it's how you define "major roads". The interstate system, from its inception, has banned all but certain types of motor vehicles but one does not have to use the interstates in order to travel, even coast to coast. Downtown Chicago still has horse-drawn carriages - granted they're for tourists but they share such major thoroughfares as Michigan Avenue and State Street with motor vehicles. In my area it is certainly legal to ride horses along the road and people do. I've rented horses for riding from a local stable and used a two-lane state highway to get to park with riding trails. And don't tell the Amish about 20 miles east of me they can't drive their horses along the road, because they certainly do. In fact, there's a Wal-Mart that has a horse barn to accommodate them. So no, horses are not universally banned from the roads. They're banned from interstates, but so are bicycles, mopeds, and other vehicles that can not meet the requisite speed requirements.

As long as we're running with this "broadcast standards = vehicle technology" idea, does it occur to you that the vehicular analogue to what you're arguing would be for the government to mandate back in 1910 that all new car designs must be horse-compatible? Think about how badly that would have held back the car industry.

Let's be real here - the US just doesn't want to spend anything on the poor, the disabled, the mentally ill. Seriously, the ideal seems to be people sitting in a barely heated room with no decoration, no entertainment, and subsisting on rice and beans for eternity. Yes, watching TV is a luxury. So is eating meat. When you have very little then what little, small luxuries you have start to become more important.

I agree that you need better social welfare in the US, and better conditions for the poor. And it does sound callous to say that Progress will sometimes leave certain people behind. But it's an inevitable side-effect of any technological society, and I think you're exaggerating the necessity of TV. There are a lot of ways for people to entertain themselves besides TV. For one thing, their old DVDs and VHS tapes will still work fine, and I say this as a parent whose kids went for years without watching any broadcast TV because we didn't want them to be psycho-programmed by the deluge of advertisements. For another, there are non-TV forms of entertainment like games, model building, sports, book reading, etc.

Last time I was poor I gave up having a car - a choice many Americans would refuse to, decreeing a personal vehicle a necessity. The thing is, when a person only has so much money THEY have to decide what is and isn't important.

I'm all for freedom of choice, but that's not what you're advocating here. You're talking about forcing an industry to continue making an obsolete product available forever, even though it's holding back the progress of that industry. It also adds cost to the product for all of society, since all TV manufacturers must continue to include obsolete hardware for picking up NTSC broadcasts. Admittedly, that cost is very small relative to the cost of a TV.

It is seldom that someone is so very poor they can afford NO entertainment whatsoever, but they have to make choices. One person might choose to forgo TV and instead see a movie in a theater once a month. Who am I to question that, who are you to question that, provided they can meet their minimum obligations? My parents decided to get a subscription to Netflix instead of a converter box or cable. Fine. That's their choice - emphasis on the last two words. (They also happen to live in an area where getting real news over the radio is an option) Someone else might choose the exact opposite. Why are we limiting peoples' choices?

For the good of the larger society, because that's what progress sometimes asks of us. If TV is as important as you say, then we need to ensure that standards do periodically move forward, instead of slaving us all to a 1941 standard. If it is not as important as you say, then it's not that big a deal to make the switchover. Either way, while I understand your objections, I do think that this is a necessary, if painful, operation.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The phasing out of analogue has already started here, with Cumbria, IIRC, being one of the first areas to lose the signal. Steadily, various areas will be converted, with the region I now reside - Anglia - being the last (but having some of the densest population centres). The analogue frequencies will then be auctioned off for other purposes by the government, to civil or military concerns.

There have been advertising campaigns on all major networks for a few years now; being complemented with HD advertising to garner support for switching to take advantage of digital channels, teletext and HD services. There are avenues for requesting help too if your TV set is without a set-top box or is too old to be converted, however, with a set-top box costing barely $50 today, I'd question how anyone could pay for food before I'd question them being able to switch to having one digital telly. It's just that cheap, and hardly like the government have suddenly decided to change to a new standard right now. The last transmitters go offline around 2012, more than enough time.

[Edi]

AT&T's U-Verse is an ASDSL2 solution that pretty much brings a DSLAM right into the neighborhood (though I hear they're starting to go to individual curbs and homes, now) and provides 18 megabits. The system is purely switched digital video, so if you're watching TV it will reduce total available bandwidth.

If I read that right, it's essentially the same thing my employer offered here, 24 Mbps ADSL2+ that was purely switched digital video. It was a disaster. The backbone can handle it all right, but the last mile even where we own the network is often 3-8 km from DSLAM to end user, so the it really worked only if the distance was roughly a mile or less. Our demographics also don't support that sort of technology due to the cost involved in the infra and the icing on the cake was that it was actually competing with the DVB-T and DVB-C digital TV that was implemented here in early 2007. So it was a losing proposition on all counts.

The US hasn't made a switchover yet, but if it did, the operators currently offering the digital TV through the net could end up in a lot of trouble with sustaining that service profitably.

Verizon's FIOS currently only does video-on-demand and pay-per-view via IPTV; "normal" channels are sent over a different wavelength and reconstructed into a standard RF signal read by the set-top box. However, VZ does hope to transition away from that and move to a fully SDV/IPTV system.

That does sound like a maintenance nightmare and that it would involve too many different pieces of equipment on the customer end. Other than that, I have nothing to comment on it due to unfamiliarity.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Isn't TV through the net, even SDTV, something of a pipedream (no pun intended) now anyway? What with the likes of YouTube and iPlayer killing ISPs, you'd think everyone moving to getting their TV and interactive online stuff via a cable would strain servers, or at least, make the exchanges in many areas far more overburdened.

[Darth Wong]

Isn't TV through the net, even SDTV, something of a pipedream (no pun intended) now anyway? What with the likes of YouTube and iPlayer killing ISPs, you'd think everyone moving to getting their TV and interactive online stuff via a cable would strain servers, or at least, make the exchanges in many areas far more overburdened.

Broadband adoption rates in the US are too low to make this a viable option, especially in depressed areas. For example, according to the Phoenix Center, broadband adoption rates in the US are quite low: low enough that there are less than 0.5 subscribers per household in Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Vermont, Louisiana, Idaho, Wyoming, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Kentucky, Montana, Iowa, New Mexico, Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Mississippi. In Mississippi, there are only 0.25 subscribers per household. Those figures are as of 2006, but I doubt it has gotten substantially better. According to Pew, less than 50% of American households had broadband access overall, even in 2007.

[General Zod]

Broadband adoption rates in the US are too low to make this a viable option, especially in depressed areas. For example, according to the Phoenix Center, broadband adoption rates in the US are quite low: low enough that there are less than 0.5 subscribers per household in Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Vermont, Louisiana, Idaho, Wyoming, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Kentucky, Montana, Iowa, New Mexico, Alabama, Arkansas, West Virginia, South Dakota, North Dakota, and Mississippi. In Mississippi, there are only 0.25 subscribers per household. Those figures are as of 2006, but I doubt it has gotten substantially better. According to Pew, less than 50% of American households had broadband access overall, even in 2007.

The average American's computer literacy rates probably haven't helped with broadband adoption either.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Despite accepting the low uptake of (relatively) pricey broadband, it does seem that most Americans I know online have it and very few I've talked to still use dial-up. The vast majority who are more visible online are probably those who'd justify the expense and are fortunate enough to be in an area with decent capabilities in the first place, because without those stats, I'd have considered the US one of the more advanced in regards to telecomms.

I know that over here, there has been a surge in broadband subscriptions what with cheaper tariffs, Wi-Fi and near 100% of the nation being able to access such services now compared to well below that not five years ago.

[Darth Wong]

Despite accepting the low uptake of (relatively) pricey broadband, it does seem that most Americans I know online have it and very few I've talked to still use dial-up.

Yeah, but that's an obviously selective sample. 30% of the households in America don't go online at all, and those who go on-line but use dial-up will tend to restrict their activities considerably, so you won't find them wiling away hours chatting and socializing on-line.

The vast majority who are more visible online are probably those who'd justify the expense and are fortunate enough to be in an area with decent capabilities in the first place, because without those stats, I'd have considered the US one of the more advanced in regards to telecomms.

I know that over here, there has been a surge in broadband subscriptions what with cheaper tariffs, Wi-Fi and near 100% of the nation being able to access such services now compared to well below that not five years ago.

Remember that the US population is extremely dispersed compared to the UK. When people say "Oh, it's no big deal, you only have to be within a mile of a telecomm switch", they don't realize that for large swathes of the population, this is not possible.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The advantage we, and the likes of Japan have, in being better suited geographically is certainly a major factor. That in mind, I know many who'd argue the US being a far richer nation, would be able to pull off a system upgrade better than elsewhere. Africa is in a similar situation, and I hear they have some pretty smart ways of getting wireless web transmitted across stretches of desolate territory. Not many NIMBYs or regulations that way, though.

I recall the pain in getting the village I used to live in connected. We needed 300 signatories on a petition for BT to consider the exchange upgrade. Got it eventually in late 2005, though there was a time it seemed that many people didn't see the point, probably in the same manner as some consider HDTV a waste, only there's a major difference between 56k and my 8 meg DSL now. Our network isn't as amazing as that of Japan or France (especially Paris), though the BBC reckons we could cope with net accessible TV provided the ISPs part with a bit more cash in the future which they'd only have to invest in new infrastructure eventually anyway.

[Darth Wong]

The advantage we, and the likes of Japan have, in being better suited geographically is certainly a major factor. That in mind, I know many who'd argue the US being a far richer nation, would be able to pull off a system upgrade better than elsewhere. Africa is in a similar situation, and I hear they have some pretty smart ways of getting wireless web transmitted across stretches of desolate territory. Not many NIMBYs or regulations that way, though.

Also, Africa has huge stretches of wasteland where there is little or no population at all, while America's highly dispersed regions still have people living in them. We're talking about 9.8 million square kilometres, almost all of which needs to be connected in order to achieve high broadband adoption rates. Canada has 10 million square kilometres with a tenth of the population, but our population is clustered in relatively concentrated areas, while much of our low-density territory is virtually uninhabited.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Somehow I'm doubting the hicks in the middle of nowhere would have a need for broadband anyhoo. Or one of dem there newfangled computing machines. The liberal, smart people live in the cities, because that's where the hot and cold running porn online comes from.

[Broomstick]

In terms of getting truly essential information - like emergency weather warnings, etc - there's radio.

I don't see the utility in cutting off an avenue of information. Also, TV can provide information in a graphic format radio can't - such as displaying a map of affected areas.

Aside from that - radio does not usually have the half-hour and hour-long formats of news and information that TV does. Most radio "news" is two minutes of sound bites. That's even worse than broadcast news. The idea that they are equivalent is ludicrous.

I agree with you that radio is no substitute for TV. Having said that, we must remember what we are talking about here: as of right now, TV stations are not allowed to switch over even if they want to, because the government is forcibly holding them back. That is analogous to what the entire analog-TV market sector is doing to the TV industry: holding the entire industry back because of backward-compatibility concerns. Imagine if Microsoft Windows were mandated by law to maintain DOS compatibility, for older users. The destructive effect of such legislation would have been incalculable.

The purpose of making converter boxes available, though, is to stop holding the broadcasters back. If everyone with an analog TV has a converter box then the objections to ditching analog broadcast disappear and we can proceed to pure digital.

However, at some point we do have to ask the question: how long do we intend to tie the TV industry to an ancient standard dating back to 1941?

Again, the converter boxes untie the transmitters from that standard. That is their purpose. As I said, if every analog TV has a converter box then there is no longer a need for the old standard. Technology triumphs again!

And why four months? Why not another 10 years? There will never be a point at which we can be assured that 100% of people no longer have old equipment. There will never be a point at which there are no poor people so that everyone can afford better options. At some point, you simply have to "bite the bullet", as they say.

And I even said as much - at this point, another 3 months makes no difference. Another year makes no difference. The coupon program is out of money. The boxes are available in stores everywhere (the government will even tell you which stores carry them near you) so even those who didn't get coupons can still obtain them (and yes, the majority of people, even those with financial problems, can scrape up $40 for one). If you don't have the needed equipment today it will still be there tomorrow for you to obtain. We've done what can be done to allow compatibility of old TV's with the new standard. I am opposed to further delay because it benefits no one and can definitely harm those wishing to take over the old TV frequencies and put them to use.

Both guns and TVs should be regulated: guns because they are dangerous devices, and TVs because they are a commercially important standards-based technology. And frankly, you should not complain about TV regulation; it is the only thing currently holding back manufacturers of TVs from ditching the old analog crap.

I'm not complaining about it - as I mentioned previously my household is ready for this, have at it. I was, in fact, pleasantly surprised at what was available on some of the side channels. I believe that in most instances this will actually be a net gain even for people with crappy old TV's.

The converter boxes eliminated the arguments against ditching analog transmission. I do have some complaints about how the coupon program was run, but that's water under the bridge now. As I said, I think the focus should have been on seeing the coupons went to those for whom this change is most burdensome, but hey, they didn't ask me how to run it.

As long as we're running with this "broadcast standards = vehicle technology" idea, does it occur to you that the vehicular analogue to what you're arguing would be for the government to mandate back in 1910 that all new car designs must be horse-compatible? Think about how badly that would have held back the car industry.

Nope, that would mean digital TV's would, henceforth, need to be analog compatible. They don't. Clearly, during the transition they needed to be. I'm not arguing against changing the standards, I'm saying that we maintain access for as many people as possible. When motor vehicles came into vogue we still allowed horse carriages, but required such things as bright orange markers on the vehicles and other regulations that allowed users of the old technology to continue to have access to the roads while others with more advanced technology were minimally impeded. This is analogous to converter boxes that enable the "horse carriages" to use the road while those with fully digital TV's are unimpeded by the old standard.

I agree that you need better social welfare in the US, and better conditions for the poor. And it does sound callous to say that Progress will sometimes leave certain people behind. But it's an inevitable side-effect of any technological society, and I think you're exaggerating the necessity of TV.

On the other hand, a converter box is a pretty damn cheap "fix", far less expensive than forcing people to buy an entire new TV. When it easy to NOT leave people behind excusing doing so becomes less acceptable.

For one thing, their old DVDs and VHS tapes will still work fine

Again, one should not assume someone with a TV also has either a DVD or VHS player. Most do, but not all.

For another, there are non-TV forms of entertainment like games, model building, sports, book reading, etc.

True. Which is why I would have been much happier with the coupon program focused on the more needy and the disabled. For example, a senior citizen with vision impaired enough to make reading difficult but for whom TV is still intelligible. My mother's stroke left her with severely impaired reading ability even though her vision is adequate to make out letters - for her, reading for entertainment is not longer realistic (which was why she traded her written Shakespeare for tapes).

As it happens, we were able to obtain two coupons but only need one. We were going to give the spare box to my parents (given mother's limitations) but they have found their own solution. If we find a needy person we'll give them the box. If our finances improve and we get a new, fully digital TV we likely will give our current converter box away - I presume charities will be matching these with recipients for years to come. It's really the only way I can alter this program to make it more what I think it should have been in the first place.

For the good of the larger society, because that's what progress sometimes asks of us. If TV is as important as you say, then we need to ensure that standards do periodically move forward, instead of slaving us all to a 1941 standard. If it is not as important as you say, then it's not that big a deal to make the switchover. Either way, while I understand your objections, I do think that this is a necessary, if painful, operation.

Indeed, you are correct we need to move forward. Converter boxes, and the coupon program, should mean we can do so with minimal negative impact on the most burdened members of society. This allows progress to move forward with, as I said, minimal negatives. I think we're at the point where it's going to be as good as it gets in the real world, which is why I am opposed to further delay.

[Darth Wong]

I do agree with you about making the coupon program only apply to the needy, but you live in America, and such a program smacks of socialism so it would be difficult to pass. Because socialism = the end of all freedom, as Joe the Plumber explained to us.

[Broomstick]

Somehow I'm doubting the hicks in the middle of nowhere would have a need for broadband anyhoo. Or one of dem there newfangled computing machines. The liberal, smart people live in the cities, because that's where the hot and cold running porn online comes from.

You'd be surprised how many "hicks" do value the internet. Satellite connections make it possible even in remote areas (although satellite internet does have some limitations). Farmers have used it for weather information, information on commodities prices (they produce the commodities, after all), and ordering things both for farming and for the household (think of the Sears catalog on-line). Homeschoolers use it to supplement their children's educations. There's keeping in touch with people via e-mail. But I assume the demographic is not hanging out on SD.net. (an e-mail aviation group I used to be part of was, in fact, about 20% farmers out in the middle of nowhere, and that was in the late 1990's)

And there is a tremendous market for porn in the middle of nowhere, there always has been. Used to be mail order, but now more on-line. Or at least ordered on-line.

[Broomstick]

I do agree with you about making the coupon program only apply to the needy, but you live in America, and such a program smacks of socialism so it would be difficult to pass. Because socialism = the end of all freedom, as Joe the Plumber explained to us.

>sigh< I sometimes think I'd make a better Canadian than American, although my flag-flying tendencies would probably bother the neighbors if I move up north.