Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Digital Disaster

From: Marcel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2002 13:12:04 -0500

Digital Disaster
  Scott Woolley, 11.25.02

  Congress tried mightily to free a major block of spectrum as part of the
  Balanced Budget Act of 1997. The law has proven worse than useless. The
  act intends to shift the nation's TV broadcasters from analog to digital,
  handing them free digital spectrum and pushing them off the older airwaves.
  Five years later they have done little with the huge giveaway and delayed the
  required exit from their current airspace. And the FCC has just compounded
  the problem.

  The 1997 law aimed to complete the switch to new airwaves by 2006--a
  deadline everyone admits will be missed. There was an out: Broadcasters
  don't have to vacate their current slots until 85% of homes have TVs that can
  receive digital signals.

  The escape clause ensures the broadcasters won't have to leave behind their
  old spectrum for years more. That is because 90% of homes don't need or
  want over-the-air tuners at all--they get their TV by cable or satellite. Moving to
  speed the transition, the FCC in August passed a new rule that forces digital
  tuners on everyone. The new rule states that most TV sets sold in the U.S.
  must carry a digital tuner for over-the-air reception by 2007, adding anywhere
  between $16 and $100 to the cost of a set.

  The digital handout was poorly handled, too. Congress gave each
  broadcaster as much bandwidth as it got under the old scheme--6 megahertz.
  But digital technology will let a broadcaster offer six channels instead of just
  one. So now these antiquated entertainers are invoking another FCC
  fiat--"must carry" rules--to demand that cable systems carry six outlets instead
  of one.

  To summarize FCC policy: Force the public to buy pricier TVs with tuners 90%
  of them don't need, to reclaim airwaves the public already owns--from
  broadcasters that never paid a dime for them. It is difficult to decide which part
  of that makes the least sense.

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2002/1125/138a.html?_requestid=4378

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