Guest post: Saving the digital transition
We're turning over this space today to a guest post from Gregory L. Rosston and Scott Wallsten. Rosston is the deputy director of the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and the Public Policy program at Stanford University and served as the deputy chief economist of the Federal Communications Commission from 1994 to 1997. Wallsten is vice president for research and a senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute.
The outgoing administration and the 110th Congress are leaving an impending mess for President Obama and his administration to manage. No, not that one. Not that one either.
Less than a month after the inauguration, millions of Americans who don't subscribe to cable or satellite services may see nothing but static on their screens. The reason is that on February 17, broadcasters must stop all analog television transmissions--the only kind that older televisions can receive over the air--and continue only digital transmissions.
Make no mistake: the digital transition is long overdue and will greatly benefit the American people. But this transition will not go nearly as smoothly as the political transition has gone unless some steps are taken immediately to soften the blow and subsequent uproar.
We already have evidence that the transition may not go well. One smart move was that broadcasters in Wilmington, N.C., agreed to turn off their analog signals in September. That test-run allowed the FCC to see what might happen. It was not pretty. Despite the relatively substantial resources devoted to preparing the city, when broadcasters turned off their analog signals, calls poured in to television stations, city offices, and even 911 call centers from frustrated and confused residents.
The good news is that the Wilmington transition ended with no major calamities and now the freed-up spectrum is available for other, more valuable uses. But the Wilmington area has fewer than 13,000 households that rely on over-the-air broadcast, whereas the entire U.S. has about 17 million such households. Another 19 million households subscribe to cable or satellite but have at least one TV that uses broadcast signals. In other words, the small brouhaha in Wilmington will be hugely magnified when the entire country makes the switch.
The primary mechanism to prepare citizens for the switch is a $1.5 billion coupon program intended to subsidize "converter boxes." These boxes connect to an antenna and to a TV set and convert the digital signal into a form the television can display. Households can, in principle, get two $40 coupons from the government to offset the price of two boxes. However, demand for coupons has been so intense that the program is out of money, prompting cries for more increased subsidies.
The real problem with the coupon program, however, is not that it is too small. The problem is that it is ineffective. In recent research, one of us found that the coupons increased the price of the boxes by almost the amount of the coupon. The coupon program therefore primarily subsidizes retailers, not consumers.
This result is not surprising. With a $40 coupon, you don't care whether the box costs $0 or $40, since you pay nothing either way. Retailers thus have little incentive to price a box at less than $40.
Still, the program's current lack of funds reflects some good news. First, it means that many people have gone out to purchase boxes and are likely to be ready for the switch. Second, the shortage has itself created news and may increase awareness, causing more people to make the necessary preparations (buy a converter box, buy a new television, subscribe to cable or satellite, or pick up a book). The bad news is that lack of coupons may cause some people not to acquire a converter box.
Congress will probably top up the coupon program for fear of being accused of not responding to this mini-crisis, but that won't be of much help to consumers, and no help to those who will need it the most, such as elderly people who may have no idea how to connect and configure a converter box (See "Digital TV transition (for the elderly)" on YouTube).
What can be done in the next few weeks, aside from expanding the coupon program? It's too late for a comprehensive new plan, but the FCC could still buy time to reduce 911 calls and to minimize the confusion from people suddenly seeing "snow" on their screens.
An increasingly popular proposal is to delay the transition by several months. That may avoid trouble in February, but will probably only put off the pain rather than eliminate it. The proposal, however, has the kernel of the right solution.
In particular, the FCC could require stations to continue their analog transmissions for two weeks in order to continuously broadcast a simple full-screen message that reads and also says aloud, "Your television needs a digital converter box. For more information, call 1-888-225-5322 (TTY: 1-888-835-5322) or visit: www.DTV.gov."
Congress, in fact, gave the FCC the ability to make this happen under the Analog Nightlight Act. So far, though, the FCC has authorized only a handful of stations to run this "nightlight" service because of interference concerns. The FCC could immediately expand the program by loosening restrictions on which stations can participate and by not requiring them to apply for eligibility.
This plan would not be free. Not all analog signals have to shut down to accommodate other uses, and those station owners could be subsidized a small amount to maintain the broadcast. A larger expense would involve compensating the wireless providers who paid $19 billion for this spectrum to wait for two weeks before beginning their transmissions. A two-week delay probably would not be a big burden on the providers as they have yet to deploy systems fully and have not sold any relevant devices to consumers.
Had the Commission and Congress better thought through the problems earlier, they could have mandated such broadcasts for at least one week prior to the analog shutdown. They could also have had monthly test markets like Wilmington, N.C. We would then have had at least 10 fully functioning digital markets and would have learned many more lessons about the transition.
By March 19, 2009, hopefully the only March Madness will be on the court and in the living rooms of households watching through televisions equipped for the digital age. The benefits to consumers from the switch are far too great to be derailed by the poor planning of the past two years and short-term political uproar. Use of the returned television spectrum and spaces between the digital channels promises to increase the quality and reliability of voice, data, and video service for wireless consumers. We cannot let poor planning delay the benefits of that true digital transition.
Charles Cooper has covered technology and business for more than 25 years. Before joining CNET News, he worked at the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie. 
The digital transition went smoothly in Hawaii. There were no overloaded phone lines with people going crazy trying to figure out what was going on. Like everywhere else, the local stations have been airing spots to talk about the transition. When the transition happened, they had people staffing phone lines and central offices for people to come in and figure this whole thing out. Yeah, there are always people that fail to switch, but they number in the very few.
When the switch was made, all analog stations showed the message, "All full power Hawaii TV stations are now digital."
Don't be afraid and let's get moving forward. Spread the FCC love with satellite offices all over the states, staffed with people that have coupons in-hand and/or $40 boxes and technical know-how.
As I understand it, there is an entire island that cannot receive any digital signals. PBS services this island, but they had problems with the transmitter.
It's extremely curious to me that documents were not kept for Hawaii like for Wilmington. In Wilmington, 1,000 people called to tell the FCC they could find signals. I know from reading news reports there were several islanders that called individual stations to see what they could do. There were at least a few people that lost most or all channels - considering the US public is supposed to own the airwaves, that is completely unacceptable.
The FCC received the benefit and so should hire a company to handle calls to an FCC 1-800 number, distribute the number to TV stations and 9-11 operators to smoothly transfer all TV-reception related calls. Advertise widely for technicians to register for the leads produced during the transition and assign them geographically. Let the consumer choose his/her own technician from a selection provided to them by mail.
i'm with bmw013090, the progress of many should not be held back by the ignorance and laziness of the few.
A bigger crisis though, will be the millions of "prepared" people who will be left behind simply due to the inferior characteristics of digital. Already tens-of-thousands have lost all access to free television - which as mentioned by others - is loss of communications from our government to our advertisers. Face it; Cable costs have risen to incredibly expensive levels, which is only likely to continue to go up. For millions of Americans (if they lose access to free TV) they will have to pay satellite operators to continue to keep any service at all.
What does the loss of analog mean? A few hours or a few days without TV (or just watching DVDs). Is that the end of the world? Hardly, it might even be an improvement. And what does fixing this problem involve? A visit to the store, paying the cost of a couple of visits to MacDonalds, and then plugging the converter in and connecting a couple of cables. Not rocket science.
Note too how this techno-bigot assumes elderly people are stupid. I have news for him. They're not. The elderly have lived through the eras of UHF converters, VHS and DVD players, along with cable TV boxes. This is no different. Some (my parent's generation) even saw TV itself come along and early TV was a lot more complicated than these digital converters. For about 20 years, TVs were always getting out of whack-- the vertical, the horizontal, the fine tuning. I think they can manage one more box.
And the few who can't will just ask their kids, their grandkids, or a neighbor for help. This commentator, like many in journalism, seems unaware that every day people solve problems by consulting friends and relatives. They don't sit blinking in front of a snow-filled TV screen waiting for some federal program to come along.
As far as not "getting it," who DIDN'T get that the coupon amount would establish a FLOOR for converter prices, not a ceiling? Those people need to retake Econ 101.
What's happening is the equivalent of condemning an entire neighborhood where large numbers of people live, and offering to compensate them with 80% vouchers to purchase new luxury condos on the other side of town, then calling them stupid if they don't jump at the deal. Outrageous!
And before anyone castigates me for being an unwashed luddite or something similar -- I can program in machine code AND Java; can you? I freely grant all of the amazing features of digital TV, and I admire most of them, but amazing features have never guaranteed marketplace acceptance. Remember betamax? It seems as if we are past the point of no return with the DTV transition, but blaming consumers for their understandable reticence to move in the direction chosen by the drovers sounds arrogant and clueless to me.
Please join this century. The technology is ready and if the consumers aren't ready by this time, they'll never be ready. Don't drag it out like the Australian government is doing.
There will absolutely be instances when no amount of money will be able to solve the DTV signal problems. No matter how high an antenna is placed, these signals just may not come. Then, the absolute only option willl be to sign up to satellite service - if it is available. Let's face it; even in todays technologically advance world, there are still hundreds-of-millions of people who live outside cities, towns, villages, many of whom cannot connect to cable, because it is not economically feasible for cable operators to expand there.
We run the risk of disenfranchising millions of people simply by turning from analog to digital.
Well, I say no! This is COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE. We absolutely cannot allow the government to force this on us, when very few people wanted this change at all. The analog system is far more reliable and reaches 98% of all the people in the US. We worked for decades to get television coverage to the people, and now we are almost starting again from scratch. I hope (when the transition finally takes place), that the millions of people that lose service will remember to call the FCC, congress, representatives, broadcasters, and anyone else they can think of and tell them they feel this is unacceptable. The truth must be told!
Do you think I'm exaggerating? Do a Google news search for Digital TV Maine or Digital TV Arizona. You'll find plenty of articles that will tell you that several thousand have just lost all television. But the media and the government doesn't want to make it sound so bad. So you won't hear about this so much until after the switch is made, when it's too late.
To make matters worse, was the action by the cable companies to start killing off analog channels and the media starting screaming (rightfully so) that cable was going to break. The FCC has stepped in to stop this debacle, but the damage was done. Took me several weeks to clean that up with her.
These older, very technically illiterate people are basically helpless in dealing with this and for those that don't have a friend or family member to assist, they are truly lost.
So, show a little maturity before judging others that started life before there was even TV to begin with...someday you are gonna be old and probably in a similar situation.
Just saying.
For those of us living in high-rise buildings in large cities, a roof antenna is not an option. An indoor antenna is the only choice. But antenna design is some sort of black art: a brand new antenna did not work on my new HDTV, but an ancient one scrounged from a closet did. Brought in every digital sub-station in NYC, perfectly and far better reception than on the analog transmissions.
In that regard, the elderly may have an advantage: they were using rabbit-ear antennas long before cable became available. (And there is no such thing as a "HDTV antenna." The digital spectrum is the same as the old analog spectrum. The only thing that has changed is the transmission technology. Just make sure the antenna you choose can receive both VHF and UHF.)
For the record, I just turned 70. No big deal.
Thanks.
For the record, I think since the government decided to convert everyone to this new type of fragile signal that apparently only works if you live in the mddle of a cornfield where there's no cars or truckls driving by, no airport nearby, no brick buildings, no walls in the way to create reflections, no trees, and no people walking by in the room you're in (without asking anyone), they should have bothered to invent an antenna that would work without fail. I live in a city with many stations all under 10 miles away, and reception is utterly worthless. I can't get any channel clearly that I could get with analog just fine. For example, I might be able to watch something on a rainy day if I'm willing to receive 1 of every 5 seconds of the show I'm attempting to watch. This is more annoying than, well, anything else I can think of at the moment. Maybe I'll go to every store in town, buy every kind of antenna I can find, go back home and test them all over the next month, and then return them all if none of them work. At this point, after spending about 100 hours on the internet trying to find ratings or info. out what type of antenna might work, and not being able to find this information, I have no hope that I will find one.
Yeah, no one said you needed a better antenna.
On a different note, the only reason I have to go thru this is because the TVs in my apt. are at opposite ends of the house and I can't run a cable line to the one in the kitchen. Anyone know of a good wireless cable TV transmitter? If I'm going to have to spend money anyway, I might as well use what I'm already paying for.
I will simply turn away from most broadcast TV when the analog signal goes away! I have several VCRs and DVD players, and hundreds of favorite TV series episodes and classic movies I haven't watched in years.
Wait until the post-DTV-transition 2009 Nielsen ratings come out and broadcast TV networks discover that their viewership is down ANOTHER 10% or more.
They'll cause a Congressional investigation!
Can you say 'Billion-Dollar DTV Boondoggle = Broadcaster Bailout'???
By switching to HD, FM broadcasters have the ability to add several digital program channels and/or a digital data stream to their signals, as well as improve the fidelity of their main signal to near-CD quality; AM broadcasters only improve their signal fidelity to FM-quality, and get no extra program channels or digital data services. But in both cases -- and especially noticeable with AM stations -- the "good coverage area" shrinks. Distant signals that once sounded very strong and solid, when transmitted by conventional means, are now often too plagued by static to be listenable. Also, to get the full benefit of the digital signal, you need a good antenna, ideally pointed in the direction of the station. This seems true, even if you are relatively close to the transmitter.
DTV and HD Radio both seem to have their quirks and bugs. But in the radio case, at least you needn't pay for the privilege of having to "bear with" the problems. I suppose we should feel lucky that the FCC wasn't all hot-and-bothered to auction off the AM and FM space too. On the other hand, perhaps they will, and we'll face another "forced march," once all the kinks are worked out of HD Radio system. I guess we'll see about that.
- by CellPhoneMonkey January 29, 2009 7:03 AM PST
- I don't think you're seeing this completely from a consumer perspective.
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(35 Comments)In Chicago, they are moving CBS to a higher channel, whereas previously it was impossible to receive without an outdoor antenna. Since I live in an apartment, I'm going to get to dump my basic cable that I use for reception.
However, CBS needs the transition to go through, cause they are going to take an antenna spot that someone else is currently using for analog, and analog signals in other markets will interfere with their new channel. Also noting this, the analog "night light" for every single channel isn't actually workable, since many channels need a different channel to shut down to switch frequencies or switch broadcast antennas.
I think they should at least force through the transition in markets that have a vhf low channel that is impossible to receive, because it will allow consumers to actually use an antenna instead of needing basic cable. Those markets get the highest benefit from the transition. The transition is also going to give many stations more power so stations will be easier to receive across the board.