Politico wants to move up DTV deadline

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I'll comment

---I'm surprised nobody has commented on the justification
given by Mr McCain for the acceleration of the roll out for DTV.
To free up analog spectrum for use by first responders in an
emergency, 911, Katrina.---

I'll comment--it's a bit of a smokescreen. Congress has
desperately wanted the big influx of cash they'll get from re-
selling off most of that spectrum (tens of billions of dollars), so
much so that they have for years included it as assumed income
in many of their budgets/economic plans. It's free money, and
means that rather than cutting pork barrel spending, they can
instead keep feeding those special interests. The emergency
spectrum thing has been a fairly recent addition to the idea, a
new justification, which makes me a bit suspicious. I personally
think there are a lot of other issues, particularly refusal to
cooperate between different emergency responder groups who
each have their own agenda and aspirations, that are more of a
problem than spectrum. And, should the spectrum be freed, it
creates a whole new set of expenses including purchasing of
new equipment to access it, purchasing new equipment for all
groups to be on the same wavelength (literally and figuratively),
updating old equipment, training (particularly as shared
communications are going to take a while to work out). Where's
the cash for all that coming from? Not from the spectrum sale
I'd be willing to bet.

Remember, any congress-critter who supports this has to run
during the next election as "the guy who broke your tv" and
made you spend $50 per set. That's not going to sell well to the
voter, which is one reason they keep putting it off. Other
reasons include a lack of desire for this from the broadcasters,
from the electronics manufacturers and from the general
public--in fact, the only ones I see who want this are Congress
(who badly want the cash), and media content owners who want
harsh DRM schemes enacted (broadcast flag).

Posted by: tic swayback   Posted on: 10/18/05 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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