WASHINGTON-It took the help of the vice president to cast the deciding 51-50 vote, but the Senate Wednesday morning passed the budget bill including the Digital TV Transition Act of 2005. The act sets Feb. 17, 2009, as the deadline for completing the DTV transition with auction of the available spectrum beginning no later than Jan. 28, 2008.
“Senate approval of a DTV hard date opens a new frontier for U.S. wireless technology development, with consumers, first responders and TV viewers all emerging as winners. We are confident that final congressional action will write the final chapter of the DTV transition,” said Janice Obuchowski, executive director of the DTV High-Tech Coalition.
The House of Representatives early Monday passed the budget bill and a vote to waive Senate rules-and thus continue the delay on Senate action-failed Wednesday morning.
In 1997, Congress said that broadcasters in 2007 would have to return the extra 6 megahertz of spectrum they were given 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. The hard date would eliminate this caveat.
The Congress Budget Office has estimated the DTV spectrum is worth around $10 billion. Private estimates of the value of the spectrum have reached as high as $30 billion.
A fund of $1 billion will be set aside for public-safety interoperability and a fund will be created to subsidize set-top converter boxes for those who receive their TV signals over the air.
Since the government will garner revenues from the sale of licenses, Congress considered the DTV bill as part of the 2006 budget reconciliation process. The House bill set the DTV hard date at Dec. 31, 2008, with an auction of spectrum freed up by the transition starting Jan. 7, 2009. The Senate passed its budget-reconciliation bill setting the hard date at April 7, 2009, with the auction starting Jan. 28, 2008. The two versions had to be reconciled or changed since both chambers must pass identical bills.
Critics continue to lambaste Congress over the lack of public-safety interoperability. The 9/11 Commission said it might raise the failing grade it gave to Congress and the White House if the DTV Transition Act passed.
