Digital television transition advertisements...

[Externet]

It has been a while since those advertisements started, it may be well end being a complete year broadcasting on every television station on every state perhaps ten or twenty times per day, at what cost ???

Sounds like many millions of dollars. Probably much more costly than the amount given away in coupons to ---> chinese manufacturers.
If I knew the figures, would venture to calculate that giving nearly away digital televisions at $40 and little or no advertisement would had been better budgeting.

USA being the gold medalist of disposable practices, these $40 coupons to be used on converters are not good against a purchase of a digital television instead (no choice). What a 'brilliant' strategy.

The new digital televisions have the 'converter' tuners built in, but no, nooooo, coupons are not good for them.

More things to fill the dumpsters, when soon or later the public tosses the analog televisions together with the converters.

Brains...

Miguel

[Bigglez]

It has been a while since those advertisements started, it may be well end being a complete year broadcasting on every television station on every state perhaps ten or twenty times per day, at what cost ???

None. AFAIK, The campaign is being done under the FCC
license requirements for stations to air PSAs, pro bono.

$40 coupons to be used on converters are not good against a purchase of a digital television instead (no choice). What a 'brilliant' strategy.

The coupons defray the cost of converters that upgrade
obsolete (analog NTSC TV sets) to extend their life. Thus
saving the sets from the landfill for the remainder of their
service lives. The complete opposite of your argument.

BTW, Miguel I sent you a PM on Monday.

[Lenp]

More thoughts about the 'Digital transition'

Did you realize that these coupons are being sent 3rd class mail?
There are thousands of people, that went or are on vacation, that will never get their requested coupons. The USPS does not forward 3rd class mail. Where are all these coupons, better not ask! The coupon police will not replace lost/undelivered coupons.

The advertisements make much to do about the 'converter' boxes but never mention the thousands of recorders without digital tuners. All landfill fodder as well.

Digital reception is cliff edged It either works or it doesn't. In February there will be a mass of people that will have no TV reception, period. In the fringe and deep fringe areas because of low signal, there will be no shows. A snowy and interference ridden picture was acceptable to these
people with analog, but no picture will be a shock. I am 35 miles from a metro area and have lost several of the 'local' stations while the analog was acceptable. Cable is unavailable and the satellite falls off the cliff edge in bad weather.

Costs aside, cable and satellite sometimes are just not options for many!

The painful irony is that in past, the FCC regulations generally did not obsolete previous consumer services. FM did not obsolete AM. stereo FM did not obsolete mono FM, quad did not obsolete stereo, 40 chan CB did not obsolete the first 23 channels, AM stereo did not obsolete AM mono. But, here's the diffrence. The sweet smell of money. The FCC lusts for these soon-to-be-abandonded channels to auction them for othere users, at our expense. What slice of the pie do we get? Two $40 coupons, and maybe not even then! Onward with the steam roller technology....

Len

[Robert Reed]

Len
To add to that:
I sent for two of the free coupons from a site on the internet (did this about 3 mos, ago) and not only had the coupons delivered in three weeks, but the same day I purchased my converters for $40 dollars apeice from a local merchant who just ran the add that same day. My total cost for two units - $4.80 in state tax. Sweet huh. Sweet that is until I realized that I am in a fringe area and get an acceptable signal barely. Now with the problems of digital format I have been hearing about, I am wondering if these will work OK once the 'Switch" takes place. We do have cable as our primary source and no changes will have to be made there. But by virtue of an A-B switch , I can go to OTA antenna during lengthy power outages. But I will need a lot of battery power to run the converter. If I forego that and try to pick up the analog signal, the power will be reduced to the point that I don't think the fringe areas will pick up the lower Tx power in that mode.
As you mentioned, all the transitions over the years has been virtully transparent, but this one is the biggest, most confusing mess one could imagine. Even the people that sell this stuff seem confused - at least to the point where you get different storys from different retailers.
The whole idea of this change was to free up RF spectrum in thr 700 MHz band mainly for Public Safety Services. Although greedy cell phone and internet services are trying to get their piece of the pie. Another thing I find contradictive is the fact that one channel spacing may now consume up to 20 MHz of bandwith at times as compared to 6MHz of the former service. Compress as they will, they can only compress so much before it affects picture quality in some form or another.
I have been involved with the FCC to some extent for many years and have seen it go from a real service oriented group to a "who canstuff the most money in my back pocket" group. The real kicker was when they started selling off rado spectrum for billions of dollars several years ago. They were formed to police it - not sell it!!!

[haklesup]

The sweet smell of money. The FCC lusts for these soon-to-be-abandonded channels to auction them for othere users, at our expense. What slice of the pie do we get? Two $40 coupons, and maybe not even then! Onward with the steam roller technology....

AFAIK, any extra money that the FCC receives for administering the allocation of spectrum goes back into the general fund thus reducing taxes for americans. GO Go greedy FCC.

Its a government agency not a for profit company, it cannot make a profit, its operating expenses are determined by congress budget

http://www.fcc.gov/fees/


While way more than anyone should want to know, here is the budget request for this year. Page 1-3 are a good overview but page 43 tells you exactly what they plan to do with the money from spectrum allocation. It benefits us not them by and large. They have kept $85M out of the $21.5B they have collected so far.
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/a ... 9991A1.pdf

If not the FCC then who would administer its allocation, a company? Now that's power in the wrong hands. Maybe it should be bought and sold like real estate and you could hold a physical deed which you could sell at any price you could get just like property. But what happens if someone trespasses (interferes) on your spectrum. You call a local cop and a lawyer and and enforcement is what you can pay for. Not very fair.

Its too bad this transition is coming at a time when the economy is bad. This had all the makings of a tech bubble that never happened but now consumers don't have enough $ to fuel it to its full potential.

If were lucky, we'll see those converter boxes drop to $40 is some stores by Christmas and into January making them cost only tax after rebate.

New uses of this spectrum could be what helps the tech sector pull out of this present recession.

[Bigglez]

I realized that I am in a fringe area and get an acceptable signal barely. Now with the problems of digital format I have been hearing about, I am wondering if these will work OK once the 'Switch" takes place.

This issue has been very poorly addressed by the PSAs and
popular media. After the switch over the DTV stations will
increase their current power to match the same service area
of the obsolete analog transmitters.

Here is a table from the FCCstating the channel assignments,
coverage area, and operating power. As I don't know your
QTH you'll have to look it up for yourself.

The whole idea of this change was to free up RF spectrum in thr 700 MHz band mainly for Public Safety Services.

Do you have a citation for this claim? Bandwidth above
'700MHz' was auctioned off for cellular telephone service.

Although greedy cell phone and internet services are trying to get their piece of the pie.

What happened to capitalism and free enterprise?
Wasn't the USA republic built on those values?

Another thing I find contradictive is the fact that one channel spacing may now consume up to 20 MHz of bandwith at times as compared to 6MHz of the former service.

Do you have a citation for this claim? This is not true.
The DTV channel spacing has not changed.
Co-channels remain in 6MHz slots. The FCC has
recinded channels 70 through 83. Lower channels are
not changed, they remain at 6MHz each, and transmit
compressed digital data that varies in bandwidth by
content and sub-channel programming controlled by
the broadcaster.

[Bigglez]

Costs aside, cable and satellite sometimes are just not options for many!

85% of the 103Million US households with televisions
use cable or satellite services. The market for DTV boxes
is quite small.

The sweet smell of money. The FCC lusts for these soon-to-be-abandonded channels to auction them for othere users, at our expense.

Do you have a citation for this claim? The FCC is not
auctioning off abandoned analog TV channels! Where
do these stories come from?

There is available bandwidth is the current TV band plan
for WSD technology (White Space Devices) that may bring
full featured TV to portable devices (such as cellphones).
The broadcasters face a real threat to competing services
for entertainment. A cellphone based service is multi-
functional (cell, internet, TV, personal enertainment),
while "TV" is a single-function, one-way, non-interactive,
media service.

[Robert Reed]

Hackles
"If were lucky, we'll see those converter boxes drop to $40 is some stores by Christmas and into January making them cost only tax after rebate. '

Read the post on top yours - I just did exactly that 2 months ago. Also as a subscriber of Mobile Radio Technology for the last 20 Years might change your viewpoint on the FCC.
This magazine is published for people that actually have to deal with the FCC and not a casual news item by EDN and such.

[haklesup]

I'm quite sure anyone who has to directly deal with such a Federal Bureaucracy does not find it pleasant, simple or inexpensive. However as a citizen who merely reaps the benefits of its administration, I have no problem with it collecting such large sums of money for awarded spectrum space. There are many reasons why this is appropriate which I won't bore you with now. (well maybe two) Companies buying spectrum stand to make far more than they paid selling hardware and services for their spectrum and a high price ensures the bidder is capable of implementing any plan and that the award is not a waste of time and money


The FCC is the only federal agency (aside the IRS) that brings in substantial cash to run the government AFAIK. Go ahead, find another agency that doesn't just spend
http://www.usa.gov/Agencies/Federal/All ... ndex.shtml
(maybe the BLM) EDIT- I thought of another one, the DEA

Amyhow, I'm off topic a bit

[Bigglez]

However as a citizen who merely reaps the benefits of its administration, I have no problem with it collecting such large sums of money for awarded spectrum space. There are many reasons why this is appropriate which I won't bore you with now.
....
Amyhow (sic) , I'm off topic a bit

I'm with you on the policy, but I'm not impressed
with the way its being handled for the general
public!

Even amongst technical people there are huge
gaps and misunderstanding of the fundemental
technology.

Once we have a couple of generations of
high school educated but technically 'dumb'
citizens there'll be no one left to sustain this
advanced society.

Now I'm OT...

[shillyard]

My question is when did the FCC go from regulating the air space to owning the airspace. It seems to me every branch of the government is morphing from regulation to ownership of the public domain.

[Bigglez]

My question is when did the FCC go from regulating the air space to owning the airspace.

Are you thinking of the FAA? The FCC administers the airwaves
(radio, TV, and other transmitters).

[MrAl]

Hi,


Maybe one question would be:
"How did the FCC allocate transmission frequency bands in the past".

Apparently it is their job to allocate anyway, so why not make some
money for gov in the process, as long as the allocation doesnt
change too much in the mean time...if Joe Schmoe buys up half
the bandwidth and uses it for personal use, who's going to stop that?

On the other other hand, if the cell phone companies get a big
chunk of it maybe it will bring cell phone airtime costs down for
the consumer. I cant say i dont like that idea, if it works.

[kheston]

If the government and the cellular providers got together and saved people money, it would be one for the history books.

[Janitor Tzap]

Yeah,
The commercials on the regular broadcast, or cable networks.
Are using scare tactics, or not telling the full truth about the technology.

The local PBS station has taken it upon themselves to try to help people understand the benefits,
and the pitfalls of the technology.

But they too are seeing the problems associated with Signal Reception.
Like Signal Refraction, or "Cliffing" as it has come to be called.
Basically the refraction problem is like the "Ghosting" you would get on older Analog sets.
But instead on the Digital ASTC receiver tuner.
The two, or multiple signals will cause it to break up the picture, or just blank the screen completely.
The other extreme is that the signal is too weak, and gets easily disrupted.
By aircraft, traffic passing by, and weather conditions.

I have the latter problem, and it is annoying as hell!
I plane flies by, and until it gets far enough away, the channel will be breaking up, or blanking out.
During some of the storms that came through last summer.
I had to grab an old portable TV to view the weather warnings.


Signed: Janitor Tzap