By Martin H. Bosworth
ConsumerAffairs.Com
March 6, 2009
After a much-publicized delay and an infusion of cash, the government's coupon program for converter boxes to receive digital television signals is back on track.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), the arm of the Commerce Department charged with administering the coupon program, announced yesterday that it has begun to clear the waiting list for converter box coupons that piled up when the program ran out of money earlier year.
The newly-passed economic stimulus plan contained $650 million to fund the coupon program and other DTV transition efforts, much of which would go to getting coupons out to the 2.1 million households still waiting to receive theirs.
"NTIA expects to eliminate the current waiting list within two to three weeks," said Acting NTIA Administrator Anna Gomez. "This is good news for the more than two million households on the waiting list, who soon will be able to enjoy the benefits of digital television broadcasting."
At a hearing of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) on the DTV transition's status, NTIA's Bernadette McGuire-Rivera said that the new funding for the coupon program would enable them to send out as many as 2 million coupons a week, clearing the backlog in two to three weeks.
McGuire-Rivera said that the funding enabled upgrades to the program, such as sending coupons via first-class mail rather than regular mail, which cut down the turnover time from 21 days to nine days for a request to be processed.
Acting FCC chairman Michael Copps said that the delay enabled a "down payment on the transition," where some regions and markets made the switch to digital signals on the original transition date of February 17, while others continued broadcasting in analog. Copps said the phased transition helped the authorities to determine what worked and what didn't, helping the rest of the country prepare for the final switchover date on June 12.
"[I]f theres one thing Ive learned about the DTV transition, its that there are no analogies," Copps said. "There are no real precedents, nothing from which to draw parallels."
Fellow Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said that the stations making the transition on February 17 highlighted that even with converter boxes, many households had problems with receiving the signals, due to antenna placement, signal loss, and not scanning for the new channel lineup, and that more educational outreach was necessary to ensure a smoother transition by the final cutoff date.
"Our increased awareness of these consequences for consumers, in combination with transparent leadership, led us to revamp our consumer education campaign," Adelstein said. Adelstein added that the renewed outreach effort would include establishing walk-in and call centers to address consumer questions, as well as adding and expanding in-home installation service for viewers who may need it.
FCC commissioner Robert McDowell said that it was inevitable that the transition would be "messy and disorganized" in some places, and that there needed to be even more effort to reach the portions of the population most likely to be affected by the transition — elderly, low-income, and minority households.
"While the [DTV delay] has given us more time to improve on our outreach efforts, extra time will not allow us to make the transition flawless. We cannot predict with perfect certainty what problems may arise and when," McDowell said.
