February 2009

Though hundreds of TV stations are turning off their analog signals, households in line for their $40 coupons for digital converter boxes are likely to have to wait at least several weeks longer. The fund that subsidizes the coupons has reached its authorized limit. It's still sending out around 100,000 coupons a day as older coupons expire unused, but there's a wait list of 4 million coupons. At that rate, it would take the National Telecommunications and Information Administration about two months to process coupon requests made today. The stimulus bill in Congress contains added funding for the program. When it takes effect, the NTIA will be able to clear the backlog in two weeks, said spokesman Bart Forbes. Mindful of the funding shortfall, Congress extended the deadline for cutting analog broadcasts to June 12 from Feb. 17. But about a third of all full-power stations have either already turned off their analog signal or have applied to stick to Tuesday's date.

The venerable VCR is one of the unsung casualties of the move to digital television. Consumers who have used the devices for years to record over-the-air or cable channels will soon be losing key features as both systems go from analog to digital transmissions. They will be left to choose from a few jerry-built or pricey solutions. "What we're witnessing is that the VCR is becoming a little bit more obsolete," said Amina Fazlullah, a legislative counsel at the U.S. Public Interest Resource Group who has focused on the transition to digital television. VCRs have been on the way out for years, of course. DVDs replaced video tapes long ago at video rental stores. More recently, cutting-edge consumers have moved on to DVRs or to watching video directly downloaded or streamed from the Internet. But the VCR is still a prized piece of equipment for many Americans. Some 72 percent of U.S. households with a TV also have a VCR, according to research group Nielsen. While the number of homes with a VCR has been declining, it's still much larger than the number of homes with DVRs. Just 24 percent of TV-owning households have one of the newer recording devices.

A $7.2-billion provision in the economic stimulus bill to extend high-speed Internet service to the rural U.S. and other underserved areas has been hailed in Congress as the 21st century equivalent of government programs that brought electricity and modern highways to every corner of the country. The Internet access provision was the subject of a furious lobbying campaign as interest groups, industries and individual companies sought to bend the details to their advantage. A large pile of government money attracts a lot of attention. In Congress, committee chairs fought turf battles for jurisdiction over the spending. And rural lawmakers squared off against their urban counterparts, quarreling over which Cabinet department should get control of the purse strings. Such lobbying is business as usual in Washington, but the stakes were particularly high with the stimulus bill. It's the biggest spending bill in memory and is considered pivotal in reviving the moribund economy.

The CEO of Frontier Communications, America's second largest rural telecommunications, provider told state utility commissioners Monday that quality broadband Internet service is the key to shoring up a rapidly evolving rural economy. Frontier Communications chairman and CEO Maggie Wilderotter addressed the growing demand for advanced services in rural Americans during a keynote presentation to the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners committee on telecommunications. Frontier, provides telephone, television, broadband and wireless services to some 2.4 million customers, and is for many the only option for those services, Wilderotter said. From her company's vantage point, it is easy to comprehend the importance of "full, fair, and affordable communications... to the unserved and the underserved, " Wilderotter said. Wilderotter explained that rather than farming, most rural Americans own or work for small businesses. And those small businesses "deserve better" than what many telecommunications companies have offered them, Wilderotter said. The rural economy can best be strengthened by bridging the digital divide, Wilderotter said. Rural customers don't want broadband service just for watching videos, she explained, but instead need it "for commerce and education - and creating and finding jobs."