by Joseph Whalen

Created on: June 17, 2008

One misunderstanding about the switch to digital TV is that everyone will be affected, when actually it is only broadcast TV signals that are mandated to go all digital by February 17th 2009. That means anyone using an antenna to watch TV will be affected, not those who currently subscribe to cable or satellite service. To understand if people should be forced to make the change it is important to understand the motivations behind the switch to digital TV.

If you believe all the marketing hype about the switch then you are probably under the impression that this is a wonderful thing for the average consumer. We will be inundated with new services, new channels, crystal clear pictures and all manner of new and wonderful services. In reality this is hardly going to come to pass any time soon. While switching to digital signals enables all of these new services because of the monumental leap in the technology, television broadcasters are highly unlikely to offer such enhancements to viewers for free; especially when only about 15%-20% of the viewing population will be affected by this change.

The fact of the matter is most of the promised breakthroughs in the technology provided by digital broadcasting are already in place. Crystal clear digital images, multi-cast broadcasting, high definition television, on demand service, channel guides and most of all the other wonderful breakthroughs promised by the changeover are already being enjoyed by cable and satellite TV subscribers. These are viewers that television broadcasters make money from because they are paying for service. To provide the same services for free hardly makes much business sense for the media providers.

Since digital broadcasting allows more information to be transmitted over a narrower band of radio frequencies the real benefit of the changeover is the freeing up of large swaths of radio spectrum for other uses. Radio frequencies that the FCC plans to auction off to the highest bidder for other uses such as Wide Area Networking, metropolitan data service and many other such service that themselves will likely not be made available to the public for free. It is a massive money grab not only by the government but by the broadcast industry in general. A move that the average citizen will benefit from only on a subscription basis in the future.

As a result the average citizen is forced to replace their analog television, purchase a digital convertor box which is only partially compensated for by government coupons or become a subscriber to a cable or satellite service. Regardless of how you look at the situation it is basically the government going out of its way to make money for some corporate entity. Whether that entity is your local electronics store, the TV and convertor manufacturers or the cable or satellite providers the end result is Americans having to pay for service they have traditionally gotten for free.

While some will argue that no one is being forced to watch television and therefore no one is being forced to upgrade to digital TV, the reality of the situation is quite different. Americans are being robbed of a service they've enjoyed for well over half a century for no reason other than corporate and government greed. The inevitability of technological change can often be inconvenient, painful and costly; but it is almost always voluntary. Motivated by an incomprehensible amount of money from the change over both government and industry entities are quick to force us to upgrade our technology. It is unfair and un-American.

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