Last Updated on March 21, 2010
In 250 days, television as we know it will undergo a major change: the industry is switching to digital broadcasting, replacing the old analog signals that have been flying through the airwaves since the medium debuted.
It’s called DTV. (Note that DTV, digital television, and HDTV, high-definition television, are two very different things.)
The snag for the television sets you now own, unless they’re fairly new, is that when the switchover to digital happens next February, those older sets will no longer receive the analog signal. So you’ll see that pretty blue, blank screen. Or static.
If you subscribe to cable or satellite television, you’re okay, but only to an extent: if you’re able to receive “over-the-air” signals when your cable or satellite signal goes on the fritz, you won’t after February unless you buy a special converter box, which runs about $60-70.
The government is trying to help, which is only right, since they’re the ones forcing this change to happen, by offering consumers a $40 coupon to cut the cost of your converter box. But now there’s a problem with that plan:
A Commerce Department official told House lawmakers that more money might be needed to mail out all the $40 government coupons that will be available to subsidize converter boxes that some TV owners will need for the February 2009 switchover.
Bernadette McGuire-Rivera, associate director of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, said at a hearing that it was possible the agency “would have to get more money, basically to buy more stamps to send out coupons.”
“This sounds like it could be a big problem here,” Rep. Edward Markey, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, said at the hearing before the panel.
A big problem?!? Doesn’t the government own the postal service? Doesn’t someone at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration know somebody “down the hall” who could “hook them up” with some stamps? And short of that, couldn’t the government just print itself enough extra cash to buy some frickin’ postage?
And why can’t the postal service, which just raised the price of stamps again, and will now make it a yearly exercise, give the government a big, one-time discount to get these things mailed out.
I mean, this could become a major crisis: people have to have their television; what are they gonna do? Read a book?
A big problem? Sure is. It demonstrates the level to which one hand has no clue what the other hand is doing. One of the many things that needs to change.
I think it’s important to point out that we young, hip, computer users are still a minority in this world. There are millions of people living in ‘hollers’ in the southern USA, and other remote backwaters, who haven’t ever even seen a computer, but if they can’t get their Beverly Hilbillies, somebody gonna git shot!
No, Jeff…putting the coupons online is a great idea for much of the population. I think the issue here is there are people who genuinely need the assistance the coupon provides, AND either cannot afford or don’t know how to work a computer…so calling a toll-free number to ask for a coupon is about as high-tech as they ever go.
The trouble is, when you go to the website, http://www.dtv2009.org, to fill out the application for the coupon, they still use snail mail to send it. I agree with you that THIS is a ridiculous idea. They could just as easily email a coupon to the people who apply online. That would cut the cost of postage for everyone who uses the website, so that people who don’t have that option could call and have their coupon(s) mailed.
Maybe I’m missing something (and forgive me if I am; I’m in a hurry) but why do they need to mail out anything?
Why not put the coupon a website and let people print it out? Wouldn’t that be the more 21st Century thing to do? This whole issue is about modernization and advancement in technology, isn’t it? So…why are they even considering the out-dated snail mail system?
Again, maybe I’m missing something here, but this seems ridiculous.