House Commerce Approves DTV Bill

By a 33-17 vote, the House Commerce Committee passed digital television transition bill Wednesday. The biggest fight of the day -- and, yes, it was a day long mark-up -- was over the size of a subsidy for analog-to-digital converter boxes. As passed, the bill allows for a total subsidy of just less than a billion dollars, providing up to two forty dollar coupons towards the purchase of converter boxes for the first 10.3 million US households that apply for them. The Committee considered a slew of amendments, the following of which passed: 1) a Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI)-sponsored provision to set aside $500 million for first responder communications (passed unanimously), 2) a 30 dollar million set aside for New York City broadcasters (see story below), and 3) a directive to the FCC to complete its "white spaces" proceeding on whether to provide unlicensed spectrum to advanced wireless devices in the spaces between licensed allocations. The bill now moves to the House Committee on the Budget which will combine it with other spending recommendations and mark up that bill next week, with a floor vote the following week. The Senate budget bill, with its DTV component, was expected to be marked up in that budget committee Wednesday and should get a floor vote in the next couple of weeks. After that the differences in those two huge bills must be reconciled in conference.
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6277864?display=Breaking+News...
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* Committee Sets Date for Digital Television Transition
http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/News/10262005_1698.htm
* House Panel Clears Measure For Digital-TV Switch in 2009
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB113037620419780797.html?mod=todays_us_ma...
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* Panel Rejects Democratic Bid To Alter DTV Deadline, Subsidy
http://www.njtelecomupdate.com/lenya/telco/live/tb-ICHE1130358121164.html