The U.S. House of Representatives has approved a bill that seeks to delay the transition to all-digital television broadcasts in the United States until June 12th. The 264-158 vote delays the planned switchover from the original February 17th date. The delay, opposed by most Republicans, is supported by President Obama as up to 20 million households are thought to be unprepared for the transition.
Around 13 million people hold expired coupons to subsidize the cost of a digital converter box, which is needed for households with analog televisions after the switch. Millions of requests for coupons are currently pending as the supply has run out under demand. Those thought to be mostly affected by the switch are poor, elderly and rural households.
“We believe it is irresponsible to ask mostly rural, or elderly consumers to reach into their own pockets to deal with this transition when many folks, including the federal government, are making a profit,” said Joel Kelsey, a policy analyst at Consumers Union. The U.S. Government raised about $19 billion from companies bidding for use of the vacated spectrum. Qualcomm, for example, paid $550 million to use the spectrum for its mobile video service. It was opposed to the delay.
Result for: analog television
Samsung and LG have announced that they plan to develop a new device that will allow for DTV on cellular devices.
“LG and Samsung are already world-class in digital TV and mobile communications. Through this collaboration, we also have an opportunity to lead the North American mobile DTV market,” said Woo Paik, LG president and chief technology officer.
There were no details or specifications on the product presented and there was no word on which standard was chosen to either. LG said there would be more details revealed later this year.
The proposed mobile DTV system will use current digital TV broadcast bandwidth and will not require the broadcasters to invest in much equipment.
“We will step up our effort to provide a technology that will benefit both consumers and broadcasters,” added Park Jong-woo, head of Samsung Electronics’ digital media division.
The plan is to hopefully see a rapid adoption by the Advanced Television Systes Committee (ATSC) of a common standard. The ATSC is the organization that adopts voluntary standards for DTV systems and plans to adopt a mobile DTV standard for the U.S. market in 2009.
The year 2009 is important as well because American analog television will end and DTV will become required.
