WASHINGTON-The Senate late Thursday agreed to set the date to complete the digital TV transition at April 7, 2009, after a failed attempt to move the date to April 2008.
“We have picked this date based upon the recommendations of the Congressional Budget Office, to maximize the return from the sale of the spectrum,” said Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. “Having the hard date in 2009 is going to raise more money.”
The hard date, officially known as the Digital Transition and Public-Safety Act, was passed as part of an overall budget bill.
The April 2009 date is still not set, however, because the House of Representatives has yet to pass its version of the budget and then the differences in the two bills will have to be worked out in conference. The House Commerce Committee set the hard date at Dec. 31, 2008.
The Senate plan calls for the Federal Communications Commission to begin auctioning the spectrum to be returned as part of the DTV transition on Jan. 28, 2008. The CBO estimates the spectrum to be worth $10 billion, but private sector estimates put the value at as much as three times that amount.
According to the budget, the money collected from the auctions will be spent in the following ways:
- $5 billion to the U.S. Treasury;
- $3 billion for a converter-box subsidy program;
- $200 million for low-power TV and translators;
- $1 billion for public-safety interoperability grants;
- $250 million for the emergency alert and tsunami warning systems;
- $250 million for enhanced 911 grant program;
- $200 million for coastal states affected by hurricanes and other natural disasters;
- $75 million available during a five-year period for the Essential Air Service program.
If there is any money left after those allocations,
- $1 billion to deficit reduction;
- $500 million for public-safety interoperability;
- $1.2 billion to coastal restoration for states affected by hurricanes.
While both the Senate and House bills assume that all of the spectrum, except 24 megahertz already allocated to public-safety, will be auctioned for commercial services, some public-safety advocates are pushing to get access to additional spectrum for wireless broadband applications. The FCC is supposed to tell Congress by the end of the year whether public safety needs this extra spectrum.
The FCC also did its part to help the DTV transition by moving the date up when smaller TVs must contain a digital tuner to March 1, 2007. The FCC originally had said TVs between 13 and 24 inches without digital tuners could be sold until July 1, 2007. Larger TVs-25 to 35 inches-must contain a digital tuner by March 1, 2006.
Congress is considering a hard date for the DTV transition as part of the 2006 budget reconciliation process. In 1997, Congress said that in 2007 broadcasters would have to return the extra 6 megahertz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band that was given to TV broadcasters to facilitate the DTV transition. But TV broadcasters could keep the spectrum if more than 15 percent of the homes in their viewing areas could not receive digital signals. Removing the caveat has become known as establishing a hard date and has been encouraged widely by the wireless industry, which wants access to some of the spectrum.
