said by AMDUSER :

What the government should have done was mandate that all tvs,dvd-vcr combos (with tuner) etc. sold new at retail had to include a digital tuner starting on January 1,2006. The digital transition was pushed back to 2009 back in 2005 for some reason.

said by AMDUSER :

What they should have done. The date for the diffrent size tvs should have been the same date though. The date for dvd-vcr combos was March 1, 2007.

said by Transmaster :

ahhh, hmmm, Beavis what did you do to the TV. This sucks and I don't like things that suck.

said by David :

Beavis and Butthead,

those guys bring back memories.... I kinda miss them in some sick way.

said by maartena :

I hear ya. They were cute in some sort of weird way.

said by v35_pilot :

This program ran out of cash because of the millions of households in the US that still receive their TV signal from OTA antennas?

Damn... I am guilty of assuming most received TV from the local cable/satellite companies.

said by morbo :

This is the program that never should have been. The people that need converters will spend a few bucks to get a converter. Why the need for such a complicated and expensive program? Such a waste.

said by pnh102 :

I agree. Technologies change. People need to adapt.

I liken this transition to the dumping of AMPS/TDMA from last year. Even though the cell phone companies involved had customers using these services, they were somehow able to be transitioned without the need of some sort of government-sponsored program.

said by cmaenginsb :

Except for those using ADT alarm systems that no longer work or were informed. There's an AMPs related lawsuit in Florida already.

said by asdfdfdfdfdfdfdf :

The technology changed because the government mandated it.

I feel confident that if the government was to mandate a change that destroyed the value of the property of the affluent many would be outraged.

Why should we then be indifferent to the destruction of the value of the property of the poor?
It is those who have bought tvs but don't have cable who will end up with worthless, useless televisions. The affluent will be fine.

I think the government made a sincere effort to create a reasonable and just policy and I think the government had to provide the same opportunity to the affluent to be able to recover the value of their property if they had OTA reception. I don't condemn them for the basic structure of the program. The government seems to have made some consideration of the tendencies of humans that would lead to those in the best and most knowledgeable position gobbling up many of the coupons whether they needed them or not. They did set aside a portion of the coupons for those whose sole access to television was OTA.

I just wish the government had done more to make it clear to people that there were a limited number of coupons and to ask them not to claim a coupon unless they needed it and intended to use it. I don't know if this would have solved the problem. I'm sure there would be a certain number of people who would have asked for coupons anyway. I think, however, that most people try to be decent if you nudge them in the right direction and would have refrained if they had fully understood the implications of holding coupons and not using them.

said by morbo :

This is the program that never should have been.

said by SilverSurfer If you liked the federal DTV coupons, then you will absolutely LOVE that your federal tax dollars are also paying for those on public assistance to have prepaid mobile phones courtesy of Tracfone.

said by morbo :

ugh... "TracFone Wireless believes that cell phone ownership is a right "

said by morbo :

This is the program that never should have been. The people that need converters will spend a few bucks to get a converter. Why the need for such a complicated and expensive program? Such a waste.

said by morbo :

i am aware of that, but it makes no difference. that is money that would have been spent elsewhere or saved.

similar to the belief that when buying a house, the real estate agent (buyers agents) don't cost you any money. it's just the seller that it costs 6%. well, where do you think the seller gets that money? why, the buyer of course. it's an ILLUSION of being free. just like somehow the fact that this money came from an auction is the ILLUSION that it is somehow special/free money.

said by WHYFREE :

why they are even giving away boxes for free in the first place. These are people that are too cheap or poor to buy cable or sat service. Why are we giving out yet more tax $$$ for a non-essential service. Let's be honest, once the full transmission phase is over, DTV boxes are going to become dirt cheap. As far as I know the TV doesn't give you a television for free, why should they give you hardware to use it? Just change it and make people buy what would be a 30 dollar piece of hardware themselves. More money in all of our pockets.

said by WHYFREE :

B) ZERO tax $$$ were used to fund this.

said by apollo80 :

If that's the case, then exactly where did the money come from?

said by BF69 :

seriously are you that obtuse? the FCC auctioned off the spectrum that was going to no longer be used and raised $19.6 billion of which a measly $1.34 bil was used for this coupon program.

said by no_one :

They did it so they could free up the spectrum and resell the now unused spectrum. The cost of the set top box program is supposed to be cheap compared to the revenue the government could make now selling the freed up spectrum.

said by govmnt cheese :

My cable company has already transitioned a couple channels over to ATSC SD already in their usual 6mo channel shuffle for no reason. There is nothing stopping them from doing the same thing in Feb for all, or just more channels. Without a converter the cable provider can now provide a cable box for yet another "modest" fee.