by Paul Henshaw

Created on: July 31, 2008

I have voted yes for this debate but I don't think it is a matter of forcing people to have only digital TV but more of choosing to stay with analogue until the signal is turned off and ceasing to watch any type of TV transmission.
Evolution is a force of nature which applies just as strongly to technology as it does to biological forms of life. Change is hard to cope with but once we have adopted a new idea or product we begin to wonder how we managed to live without it.

I am sure we had the same arguments when moving from gas lamps to electric lamps or horse driven carriages to early forms of the motor vehicle, yet try to imagine life without these technological advances. Imagine if the people who wanted to remain with black and white TV rather than adopt the newer and more expensive colour version had won the argument.
If people did choose to stay with analogue they would find that manufacturers would cease making products for this technology having moved onto digital as that would generate a bigger income for them.Eventually the anologue equipment would breakdown and you would be unable to get it fixed as there would be no support from the manufacturers who will have been forced to move onto digital by consumer demand and the need to make profits from the newest technologies available.Even if your equipment didn't breakdown nobody would be transmitting anything on the analogue system as they would have moved over to Digital which offers a much more flexible and better service.It would be too expensive for them to have transmission equipment for both analogue and digital TV signals.
Just like the horse drawn carriage, analogue TV has been developed as far as it can be and needs to be evolved into a more modern and useful tool which comes to us in the format of digital TV. Digital offers us better sound and clarity, interactive services and less degradation of the TV signal allowing more people to receive the TV signal even in the remotest of areas.
Extra cost is probably the biggest concern and I do believe that the government should subsidise those less able to afford the costs placed upon them by the switch. If they do intend to sell off the bandwidth they can easily afford to help those most vulnerable members of society to benefit foot the digital technology.
Digital TV will also free up bandwidth allowing it to be used to develop better wireless broadband and give us more access to wire-free technologies. So it isn't a matter of forcing people but saying to them accept change or stay with your horse drawn carriage and make do.

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