[ EEPI-Discuss ] The Digital TV Fiasco

[Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>]

------- Forwarded Message

From: David Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: [IP] The Digital TV Fiasco
Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 14:44:19 -0400
To: Ip ip <ip@v2.listbox.com>

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Date: June 9, 2005 2:41:29 PM EDT
To: dave@farber.net
Cc: lauren@vortex.com
Subject: The Digital TV Fiasco


Dave,

A really remarkable aspect of the FCC's continuing push to obsolete
existing consumer televisions is how oblivious most people are
to the entire process, particularly those persons who still depend
on broadcast signals for all of their television viewing.

Yet even folks who mainly use cable or satellite, and the lucky
ones who have one nice new television in the livingroom, are likely
to have any number of older, smaller sets in other rooms, often
not hooked up to those services and only receiving off-air programming.

It will be interesting to see the voters' reactions when all of
those analog sets, which have been working just fine, go dark.
Presumably most people aren't going to be willing to shell out money
for set-top conversion boxes so that they can watch digital versions
of "Gilligan's Island" reruns from their local stations.

While a long-term transition to digital television was obviously in
the technological cards, the way that Congress and the FCC have
handled this situation has been an exceptionally shameful big-money
and politics-driven fiasco, even by the usual Washington standards.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@pfir.org or lauren@vortex.com or lauren@eepi.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
   - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, EEPI
   - Electronic Entertainment Policy Initiative - http://www.eepi.org
Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com

   - - -


>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: Randall <rvh40@insightbb.com>
> Date: June 9, 2005 1:52:08 PM EDT
> To: Dave <dave@farber.net>
> Subject: FCC moves up Digital Deadline
>
>
> http://apnews.excite.com/article/20050609/D8AK50QG0.html
>
> FCC Speeds Up Digital TV Signal Deadlines
>
> Email this Story
>
> Jun 9, 10:21 AM (ET)
>
> By DAVID PACE
>
> WASHINGTON (AP) - Federal regulators on Thursday moved up the  
> deadlines
> for manufacturers to make popular, mid-sized television sets  
> capable of
> receiving digital signals.

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