Sunday, February 22, 2009

Look at DTV

Wired.com runs an item about the troubled DTV transition. It thinks the biggest trouble is the voucher program, which left millions waiting for their $40 coupon as the original Feb. 17 deadline loomed.
As I remember, the vouchers were not part of the plan when the original DTV law came into being in 2005. They were an add-on to help those Congress thought couldn't afford either new digital TVs or the converter boxes.
People knew about the transition, thanks to endless reminders whenever you watched TV. The FCC only got 25,000 calls to its hotline on Feb. 18, just six calls per additional person hired to man the call center.
People pay their bills and people would have handled the DTV transition fine. Trying to help a few cost many plenty.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Funny there was no income requirement to get the two $40 coupons. Hundreds of them are floating around and for sale for $5/10. I needed one for an old TV in a spare bedroom so got two as allowed. Got the two boxes and no place for one of them.
X-Firefighter (quit volunteering on Jan 20th 2009)