[opendtv] The Nonsense of Congress
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2005 09:39:13 -0500
In my January 2005 Download column for Broadcast Engineering - The
Sense of Congress - I predict that Congress, NOT the FCC will act to
set a date certain deadline for the DTV transition. Not this year,
but next year, as part of yet another major re-write of the
Telecommunications Act.
Warren Publishing's Communications Daily is now reporting that
"Congress will "push" this year to "get more certainty" in the DTV
transition and the turn-off of analog broadcast signals, predicted
Pete Filon, minority counsel of the House Commerce Committee.
Speaking here at the CES, he said Congress will consider subsidizing
converter boxes to display DTV on analog sets.
Bert will really like this part:
"DTV-to-NTSC converters will be "very low cost" even before the
final DTV conversion, said John Taylor, vp- public affairs for LG
Electronics/Zenith. Depending on the volume, he said, the cost could
reach $50 per box by 2006 or 2007.
The report then points out the divergent views on the transition in
Washington: There's been "a lot of progress" on the transition, Filon
said, but he added that "many in Congress feel the transition has
been going a lot more slowly than they had expected." He said the
analog spectrum is "desperately needed" by emergency responders and
innovators.
But the transition is going much faster than most expected, said
Rick Chessen, head of the FCC's DTV Task Force. He said people "would
have laughed" a couple of years ago at predictions that the
transition would go as fast as it did: "The fact that we're even
talking about what we're talking about is quite remarkable... This
thing is taking off."
Yeah RIGHT!
It's being taken off the FCC agenda, as no matter what they do they
will be challenged. First in the Courts, then by Congress.
Congress will settle this matter, eventually.
At the moment however, the transition is a cash cow for our elected
representatives, as they dial for dollars from the cloak rooms of the
Nation's Capitol. By the summer of next year we should have an idea
of who will win the latest bidding wars.
Regards
Craig
----------------------------------------------------------------------
You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways:
- Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at
FreeLists.org
- By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word
unsubscribe in the subject line.
Other related posts:
- » [opendtv] The Nonsense of Congress
