House Is Expected to Pass Digital TV Delay in Regular Vote Next Week

The eyes of the telecommunications world will turn toward Washington, D.C. next week, as Congress gets another chance to delay the widely anticipated shutdown of analog TV.

 

Consumer advocates long have called for legislators to delay the deadline past Feb. 17 for a federally mandated switch to digital TV broadcasting. As TMCnet reported, the conversion is expected to affect about 20 million consumers who don’t already use the technology.

 

Last week, the Senate voted unanimously to delay the conversion by four months, to June 12. But the House – in a special vote that would have required a two-thirds majority – voted just 258-168 in favor of the bill, falling short. Still, the tally would be enough for a regular floor vote and – if passed, as it’s expected to – the bill would go to President Obama.

 

As Reuters (News - Alert) reporter Kim Dixon writes, Obama himself had asked legislators to extend the original deadline after a funding limit for the project was reached – a proposal that House Republicans were expected to fight, and did.

 

In order to replace their TVs with digital units, owners of older sets that receive over-the-air signals must buy a converter box, replace their TV with a digital TV, or subscribe to satellite or digital cable service.

 

It’s a lot to ask, especially considering that many of those with older sets aren’t tech-savvy or even interested in technology, and – sure enough – the government ran out of funding for coupons to subsidize converter boxes last week. Officials estimate that 1.8 million people remain on a waiting list.

 

While some companies that have invested millions in the conversion say any delay would decrease confidence in the auction model for spectrum allocation, others say they don’t want to anger customers by effectively leaving them without a TV signal for some time.

 

IT insiders such as TMC President Rich Tehrani (News - Alert) rate digital TV at the top of a short list of FCC priorities facing the agency’s new chairman, Julius Genachowski, along with net neutrality – an issue that outgoing FCC (News - Alert) Chairman Kevin Martin has largely side-stepped – and free wireless broadband access.

 

“Ideally, I would like to see the new FCC help foster more communications and broadband competition and have more of a focus on watching out for consumers – we the people who pay their salaries,” Tehrani said. “Most importantly, I would like to see an FCC which advocates consistency so investors and our industry can invest properly.”

 

According to Joelle Tessler of the Associated Press, Obama’s administration and many Democrats on Capitol Hill argue that a delay is needed to ensure that millions of consumers, especially poor and elderly Americans, don’t lose TV reception when broadcasters shut off their analog signals.

 

“Republican lawmakers have raised concerns that a delay would confuse consumers, burden wireless companies and public safety agencies waiting for the slices of the airwaves that will be vacated, and create added costs for TV stations that would keep broadcasting both analog and digital signals for four more months,” Tessler reports.

 

Stay tuned to TMCnet for the latest developments.