Over at Ars Technica, another article is posted by someone wishing to convince the administration, and the public at large, that the DTV transition date should not be extended.
The article starts with the premise that, because so many people already receive their television reception by satellite and cable is reason enough to avoid the delay. The next, though unstated, portion of this is certainly that the public airwaves should not belong to the public. It is there, but veiled through the next few paragraphs, in a way so as to not stir the already sleepy.
All Americans now have access to all or some of their local TV station’s programming by subscribing to cable, satellite, or broadband Internet service. By law, all cable and satellite companies must carry local TV station programming on their networks. By law, too, all new TV sets sold in the last few years have had to include special tuners to pick up the digital TV signals broadcast terrestrially, over-the-air by local TV stations. But some Americans nevertheless rely on analog, terrestrial, over-the-air reception to pick up their local TV stations. As of December 2008, approximately 6 percent of U.S. residences, including vacation residences, exclusively rely on such analog reception. Some of these households, like those belonging to Amish or Hasidic families, may own an analog TV but seek to watch it as little as possible. Some even believe that broadcast TV programming is harmful to their children. When my local member of Congress visited my child’s elementary school during TV-Turnoff Week, he advised the kids to turn off their TV set and read a good book.
Then in the very next paragraph, more conclusions drawn from shaky facts, and poor logic.
A key assumption behind America’s digital TV transition policy is that individual Americans shouldn’t be harmed by technological obsolescence even if that obsolescence is in the public interest. But why should the government subsidize a consumer’s obsolete fifteen-year-old $100 color TV and not his obsolete four-year-old computer? Every communications industry has had to transition from analog to digital technology over the last few decades. Why treat the broadcasters’ transition specially?
What kind of garbage is this? The last paragraph, especially, is one of those complete WTF moments. What other communications industry has converted to digital? The last time I looked, FM radio was alive and well (and where not well, having nothing to do with method of transmission). That one example alone proves the falseness of his claim. Why should anything else he states be believed?
The entire transition has been accomplished with the kind of backroom dealing that the current administration promises will have ended yesterday. While it is true that it has been years for this to take place, the reasons given are not the actual reasons for the changes.
So many have already commented on other articles, regurgitating the false information that has been put forth during this process, and thinking that somehow, the fact that the government has put it forth makes it so. To these people, I would caution, that this same administration, that ended yesterday, is the one that indicated to the nation that torture of prisoners was something we, as as a country did not do. When confronted with the unassailable information from the press (thank God, and much thanks to the fourth estate!) that torture was indeed taking place, it then shrank back, and tried to do a two-step about what defined torture.
For that reason alone, I would not believe anything that my eyes could not verify, and after that, I would get the second opinion from someone I trust.
Getting back to the point, the public airwaves should always be public, and this idea that changing the system of transmission without public referendum is a good thing, is missing the mark by a mile.
A few paragraphs later, the author uses yet another false premise, which has been put forth since 2001, as an excuse for the fact that the emergency services were unable to cope with the scope of the greatest emergency of that year.
And let’s not forget how quickly members of Congress have forgotten 9/11 and the 9/11 Commission’s urgent and influential plea to complete the digital TV transition for the sake of public safety, which was to receive 24 MHz of the 108 MHz of spectrum freed up at the end of the transition. Members of Congress were never very fearful of the wireless broadband constituency, which rarely even knew its own interests. But if catering to the broadcast lobby meant that fire and police couldn’t effectively communicate in a 9/11 type incident, then the political equation seemed quite different. Memories of 9/11 have long since faded. But if between February 17, 2009 and the newly proposed June 12, 2009 deadline there is a new 9/11 with its attendant public safety communications disaster, we’ll know who to blame.
Yes, by all means use scare tactics to a get a point across! This too, is the sort of problem that was something never really analyzed thoroughly by those who read the 9/11 commission report. Although I’ve only seen parts, I’m sure that it did not specify that the spectrum needed was exactly 24MHz, or that it was imperative that it be carved out of the television band.
The point, that I have been trying to make, for a while now, is that I am not a Luddite; I don’t expressly have a problem with the change to digital television.
What I do have a problem with is the number of lies perpetuated, the mis-information put forth in the commercials that the government paid IBM handsomely for, and the implementation before the problems are worked out.
Bearing in mind that the government was led by idiots, that chose the wrong system of transmission for digital television, and allowing for the problem that it is too late to turn back on this folly, it should still be incumbent upon the system in place to arrange for similar reception to that which was had by analog systems, before the analog signal is quieted for the last time. This means that, in large markets, such as Los Angeles, the effective radiated power must either be ratcheted up, or repeater stations must be in place, to allow the same viewing, by the same audience. It also means that a study should be undertaken, by people who understand the physics, and not the economics, to repair this broken-before-fully-implemented system.
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