WASHINGTON-House and Senate negotiators have settled on Feb. 17, 2009, as the deadline for completing the transition to digital TV service.
The House of Representatives passed the budget bill, which contains the DTV Transition Act, early Monday, and the Senate is expected to follow suit shortly so lawmakers can adjourn for the year.
“The analog television signals that have come into our homes over the air since the birth of TV will end the night before Feb. 18, 2009, and a great technical revolution that has been in the making for years will finally be complete,” said Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), chairman of the House Commerce Committee. “The DTV legislation brings needed certainty to allow consumers, broadcasters, cable and satellite operators, manufacturers, retailers, and government to prepare for the end of the transition. We will have three years to prepare for the transition. That is more than enough time for manufacturers and retailers to move low-cost DTVs and converter-boxes into the market, for the Federal Communications Commission to complete the channel-allocation process, for broadcasters to finalize their digital facilities, and for government and industry to prepare consumers for the transition.”
Barton was hospitalized last week after suffering a heart attack but he was released in time to vote on the budget agreement.
The wireless and high-tech industries hailed the House action and urged the Senate to act quickly.
“Aside from being a top priority of the wireless industry, this initiative is a clear ‘win-win,” and we applaud the House for passing it. It is our hope the Senate can and will complete its work on the bill and send it off to the president,” said Joseph Farren, CTIA director of public affairs.
“The House’s passage this morning of a hard date in the budget-reconciliation conference report paves the way for the Senate to quickly step up to the plate and, at long last, open a new era in digital communications for consumers and first responders,” said Janice Obuchowski, executive director of the High-Tech DTV Coalition.
The auction of the spectrum must be completed by Jan. 28, 2008.
In 1997, Congress said that broadcasters in 2007 would have to return the extra 6 megahertz of spectrum, but TV broadcasters could keep the spectrum if more than 15 percent of the homes in their viewing areas could not receive digital signals. The hard date would eliminate this caveat.
The Congress Budget Office has estimated the DTV spectrum is worth around $10 billion. Private estimates of the value of the spectrum have reached as high as $30 billion.
A fund of $1 billion will be set aside for public-safety interoperability and a fund will be created to subsidize set-top converter boxes for those who receive their TV signals over the air.
Public safety praised the interoperability funding, while still expressing disappointment that the DTV hard date will be two years later than they had hoped.
“We are grateful for the House passage of the bill establishing a firm date for the DTV clearing and providing funding for interoperability. Although we still wish the clearing of the spectrum could occur as close to 2006 as possible, our main goal was the establishment of a hard date,” said Courtney McCarron, communications affairs manager for the Association of Public-safety Communications Officials.
Since the government will garner revenues from the sale of licenses, Congress considered the DTV bill as part of the 2006 budget reconciliation process. The House bill set the DTV hard date at Dec. 31, 2008, with an auction of spectrum freed up by the transition starting Jan. 7, 2009. The Senate passed its budget-reconciliation bill setting the hard date at April 7, 2009, with the auction starting Jan. 28, 2008. The two versions had to be reconciled or changed since both chambers must pass identical bills.
Critics continue to lambast Congress over the lack of public-safety interoperability. The 9/11 Commission said it might raise the failing grade it gave to Congress and the White House if the DTV Transition Act passed.
