In the United States, the digital switchover takes place early in 2009 (February 17th, to be precise). The OTA analog frequencies will cease to function, and everything will be digital. For some people, such as those with ATSC tuners in their televisions, will not be affected. Neither will those people who are currently subscribing to cable and satellite services.
For those who are affected, they will need to purchase an analog to digital converter box. These boxes are priced in the neighborhood of $60.00, but the federal government is offering a $40.00 coupon to alleviate some of the cost. You will need to have one of these devices on each analog TV that you own.
In Canada, this transition is not scheduled to take place until August of 2011, but to the best of my knowledge that is an open date and has not been completely finalized yet. Canadians who live near the border who pick up analog signals from the United States will no longer receive these channels after February 19th of next year.
The sale of the NTSC spectrum is going to reap billions of dollars for the United States Government. Major players such as Google, AT&T, Motorola and others will purchase this bandwidth. Some companies do not even know what they will do with it, but they recognize it as too valuable of a commodity to pass up.
Those who subscribe to satellite service are already enjoying the benefits of a mostly digital signal. Cable companies in the United States are mandated to carry analog signals through 2012. However, there is an interesting battle shaping up between the FCC and and the cable/satellite companies. The reason is over the costs of a digital transmission and bandwidth, if it is good for the consumer, and if they can pass these costs down. The reason to implement an early transition to digital is due to one reason: bandwidth.
Bandwidth is all that these companies have to sell, when you look at the big picture. If they do not have enough bandwidth, they are unable to provide such services as internet and cable (or with respect to cable, they cannot carry as many channels). This is what is motivating the transition to digital.
An analog cable channel takes up 38.4 megabits of bandwidth. An SD digital channel occupies only 3 megabits, and an HD digital channel is less than 9 megabits. When a channel is converted to digital, a fair amount of bandwidth is freed up. Imagine – the crappy weather channel takes up more than four times as much as HDNet!
The more channels that are pushed to digital is the more bandwidth that these companies can allocate to other uses, such as broadband Internet (or adding more channels). In this age, the need for speed across the Internet is omipresent. Applications are being developed that require as much bandwidth as we can give them. A good example of this is YouTube. If the bandwidth was available they could increase the bitrate of their service, allowing for a much better viewing experience.
The caveat to all of this is that people who are subscribing to basic cable with analog television sets would be required to obtain a digital cable box. Where the FCC gets involved is determine who pays for this box. Is is the consumer, or the cable providers?
Being a tech junkie, I’m all for digital cable (better quality, less bandwidth) and faster Internet service over analog tv service. However, I see the other side of the coin. I don’t know if this is the right solution or not, but what I would do is start by grandfathering digital cable into the homes. Split the cost of the cable box between the consumer, the cable company, and the FCC. All new subscribers would be purely digital. At the same time, start rolling out pure digital areas in select towns and cities, and upgrade existing users using the aforementioned formula. The cost would be about $20.00 per party. Initally, the cable companies will take a hit but by being able to offer better services across the board, they would quickly make up that lost revenue.
