Digital world says goodbye to analog airwaves

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

By Henry Sweets

Jackson Hole, Wyoming - The nation’s airwaves are in transition. Beginning on Feb. 18th, analog cellular phone service will be shut off across most of the country. Broadcast television will follow suit one year later.

In recent years, digital technology emerged as the most efficient means for cellular communications and broadcast television as it makes better use of bandwidth than its analog counterpart. In 2002, Congress moved to preserve analog networks so that handset owners, home and car alarm companies and emergency services that were still dependent on analog technology - often in rural areas - would have several years to switch to digital services. Congress decreed that all networks must maintain their analog cell towers until Feb. 18th, 2008.

Mike Keegan from Watchguard Security Systems, a local alarm company that is a part of the National Burglar and Fire Alarm Association, said that the group has been lobbying to extend the ‘sunset deadline’ for analog cell towers from 2008 to 2010. The FCC declined their proposals and for the last eight months the group’s members have been converting alarm systems from analog to digital cell service – at the cost of their customers.

Carol Chesney, manager of Jackson’s Verizon Wireless store, said the switch “shouldn’t really affect the majority of our customers because those [analog and tri-mode] phones have been weeded out for years.” However, more than a million analog-only handset owners remain nationwide.

 Edge Wireless does not have any analog cell phone towers, so Edge users will remain unaffected. Union Wireless, a regional provider, serves oil companies who still use analog data transmitters, and many of their rural customers still rely on analog towers as their only option for service. Union remains one of a few regional providers nationwide who will voluntarily maintain its analog cell-phone towers, while most other providers have been maintaining their analog network out of obligation to FCC guidelines, and welcome to chance to go exclusively digital.

Rapidly approaching is a similar switch for Broadcast Television, to occur Feb. 17, 2009. Most viewers in the valley who tune in to broadcast TV currently own sets that receive analog signals. John Graner, Manager of the Sears Store in Jackson, said “in the last year we have been cutting back more aggressively on the sales of analog TV sets” and that now the store carries only high definition models. Thousands of rabbit-eared analog TV sets lurk in the valley and over the next year, their owners will have to purchase converters or new high definition sets in order to receive any broadcast signal.

Crystal Rahme from KJWY estimated that 7,688 households in the valley currently tune in to their broadcast signal. Her station is trying to find the most efficient means to convert but she said it “is a cost to every single station across the country” and “right now there are no plans” for Jackson’s only broadcast station.

The cost for the consumer will be between $50 and $70 for a converter, and the FCC will provide up to two $40 vouchers per household to offset their cost. All of this information, and an application for the vouchers, are available on the FCC’s website devoted to the change: www.dtv2009.gov/. Over the next year public service announcements will alert viewers to the switch and provide tips to ease the transition.
KJWY producer John Cook said there is an upside to the new digital signal. It will “provide a better quality product for the viewer.”

The 700 MHz spectrum to be vacated by broadcast TV can penetrate thick walls and other barriers. It is ideal for emergency services, and also for personal handheld communications devices. So while the FCC has set aside $1.5 billion to wean Americans from the 700 MHz spectrum and help them go digital, tomorrow they are looking to make 10 times that figure auctioning 700 MHz bandwidth off to potential bidders AT&T, Verizon, Google, and other communications companies. A prospective new network of mobile devices with streaming television, one on one mobile video conferencing and innumerable other functions will likely pervade even our own valley.

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Digital world says goodbye to analog airwaves | Planet JH News Article: Business

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