My Telecom Professor, On DTV
An op-ed by my Telecommunications and Broadcast Media Law professor was published in the SF Chronicle. Regarding the first crisis to hit the next President, he suggests the following...
So mark Feb. 17, 2009, on your calendar. That's the date when over-the-air broadcast television stations stop transmitting in analog signals and turn on digital television broadcasts, called DTV. The effect, for anyone who receives over-the-air television with an analog television, will be a blank screen. . . . Make no mistake about this: it will be a train wreck.
There are several additional steps the government should take right now to ensure that those at risk of either not receiving nor understanding the message do get it. The Social Security Administration should include a simple notice of the change and the steps an over-the-air viewer must take with every Social Security check or deposit acknowledgement. Further, the U.S. Postal Service could also distribute a flyer with every mail delivery several times during the remainder of this year and then again in January 2009.
Unless the government does a much better job of ensuring that everyone gets the message, many won't. The result will be a fiasco.
Completely on target. From what I've read, that NC test had a 0.5% fail rate, which sounds great until you realize that this was under optimal conditions with extensive community outreach. Expanded out to the entire country, even this near-perfect performance leaves one million people tuning in to snow. Feb. 17, 2009 is going to be interesting. I'm expecting a run on converters at Target and Walmart, and a lot of unhappy calls to customer support.