Anything else you need....?

[finknottle]

Yep. There was a spectrum auction earlier this year with more to come, I believe. I don't think they're going to get as much money from it as they were hoping, but Uncle Sam will still probably haul in a few billion, even after providing the digital converter coupons that make such a sale do-able w/o people grabbing pitchforks and torches.

 

I think that is incorrect (but I'm not 100% sure).

 

In the late 90's the FTC gave away spectrum suitable to high bandwidth to the broadcasters (I believe free - this is the part I'm not sure of). The idea was that they were to begin dual broadcasting on both analog and HDTV. A portion of the old spectrum was freed up early, and the bulk will be freed up when the transition is finalized early next year. [in fact, that's why the transition had taken longer than originally planned. The broadcasters liked getting free spectrum for HDTV, and once they got it they slow-rolled the process of giving up their old spectrum. They liked having extra channels!]

 

In other words, it's just a swap of real estate.

 

I think the confusion arises with what happens to the old spectrum. The plan was to take some of that (low bandwidth) spectrum and reserve it for Public Safety channels. The question was what to do with the remainder... That, they decided, would be auctioned off to users more suited to it: wireless. Companies like Verizon and Qualcomm.

 

Ok, maybe it sounds like I'm splitting hairs. What I'm really saying is that the conversion itself is revenue neutral to both the government and the broadcasters: the government swapped frequencies with the broadcasters, and no money changed hands. So they are not making money on the deal (your original point being that they should pay for the conversion boxes because they are making money off of the sales). In fact, one could argue that the frequencies the government gave up were worth more!

 

Where the government is making some money is by auctioning off newly-available spectrum. Had the analog-digital conversion never occured, they would still be sitting on some spectrum, and would still probably be auctioning it off to the wireless companies to raise money. The point is that the auction is only incidentially connected to the analog-digital conversion.

[Gene Frenkle]

Yup, just like every other one of these silly quizes I've ever seen. Of course, 80% of the time, they are slanted in the other direction.

Link?

[UConn James]

I think that is incorrect (but I'm not 100% sure).

 

In the late 90's the FTC gave away spectrum suitable to high bandwidth to the broadcasters (I believe free - this is the part I'm not sure of). The idea was that they were to begin dual broadcasting on both analog and HDTV. A portion of the old spectrum was freed up early, and the bulk will be freed up when the transition is finalized early next year. [in fact, that's why the transition had taken longer than originally planned. The broadcasters liked getting free spectrum for HDTV, and once they got it they slow-rolled the process of giving up their old spectrum. They liked having extra channels!]

 

In other words, it's just a swap of real estate.

 

I think the confusion arises with what happens to the old spectrum. The plan was to take some of that (low bandwidth) spectrum and reserve it for Public Safety channels. The question was what to do with the remainder... That, they decided, would be auctioned off to users more suited to it: wireless. Companies like Verizon and Qualcomm.

 

Ok, maybe it sounds like I'm splitting hairs. What I'm really saying is that the conversion itself is revenue neutral to both the government and the broadcasters: the government swapped frequencies with the broadcasters, and no money changed hands. So they are not making money on the deal (your original point being that they should pay for the conversion boxes because they are making money off of the sales). In fact, one could argue that the frequencies the government gave up were worth more!

 

Where the government is making some money is by auctioning off newly-available spectrum. Had the analog-digital conversion never occured, they would still be sitting on some spectrum, and would still probably be auctioning it off to the wireless companies to raise money. The point is that the auction is only incidentially connected to the analog-digital conversion.

 

Well, that wasn't exactly my original point, but whatever. The govt is not making money from the sale of the boxes, they are offering coupons to get people to convert to digital willingly and without raising too much of a stink. You're right about splitting hairs, altho that isn't so much the case as much as you're wrong about what is causing what and to what purpose and effect. If Channels 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 are still broadcasting analog in a market (I get all of these channels), the FCC very well can't sell the VHF-low spectrum. Therefore, the push was on for stations to move to UHF or VHF-high, broadcast in digital, and then eventually shut off high-power analog broadcasting, which will finally happen in Feb, after quite a delay b/c stations had dragged their feet in installing expensive digital equipment (I don't think they were jumping for joy over "Free spectrum" as you say. They have to pay for the power to send out the signal for both analog and digital, dividing of their engineers' time, advertisers probably not willing to pay any more when there will be no net gain in viewers,... I could go on and on about the detriments. Anywho, the converter coupons were intended as an incentive for people to be prepared for the switch to digital and not be able to have much bitching rights. Otherwise, the charge would be leveled that the govt sold public property (the airwaves) and left said public out in the cold w/o any help. One thing they didn't want to see was little old grandmothers (seemingly, the target audience of all the digital conversion commercials) on the local news after a storm saying they didn't know about the bad weather b/c their teevees didn't work anymore. Hence, the coupon program so they can sell VHF-low or use it for public safety comm, and eventually sell the upper UHF band.