U.S. Senate Votes To Delay DTV Transition
Washington, D.C. – The United States Senate voted unanimously today to extend the deadline for U.S. TV stations to covert their broadcast signals from analog to digital (DTV) until June 12, 2009.
The bill still needs to be approved by the U.S. Congress before it is signed into law by President Obama. Both the President and Congress have indicated their willingness to see the law passed. The original deadline for the transition to digital television was February 17th.
“Delaying the upcoming DTV switch is the right thing to do,” said Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., author of the bill to push back the deadline. “I firmly believe that our nation is not yet ready to make this transition at this time.”
It is presumed (details on the bill are not public yet) that the bill also allocates an additional $25 million in funding to The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, which is the government agency responsible for dispersing $40 discount coupons for set top CECB converter boxes. The converter boxes allow those with analog television sets to decode the DTV or HDTV signals for viewing, albeit with degraded picture and sound quality. To get on the waiting list for coupons, U.S. residents may call 1-888-DTV-2009 or visit the TV Converter Box Coupon Program at http://www.dtv2009.gov.
Up until today, the looming DTV transition deadline in February and the current shortage of coupons sent by the government had created a miniature black market for the items. Ads on Craigslist.Org and auctions on eBay had been demanding higher and higher prices. This should put a quick end to most of these ads, which were being quickly deleted by each of the two websites. It is currently against federal law for anyone to sell DTV converter coupons.
Topics: 2009, 888-DTV-2009, analog, analog-to-digital, box, boxes, broadcast, cecb, Congress, convert, converter, converter box, converter boxes, coupon, coupon program, D.C., demand, digital, digital television, DTV, dtv transition, dtv2009, dtv2009.gov, government, HD, hdtv, hdtv signals, humboldt, information, jay rockefeller, law, list, NAL, nation, NTIA, Obama, online, program, Senate, senate commerce committee, shortage, signal, station, switch, television, transition, tv, tv converter, TV Signal, tv stations, U.S., U.S. Congress, U.S. Senate, united states senate, vote, waiting list, Washington
