By Bruce Kushnick
bruce@newnetworks.com

Q. Are the government and media outlets such as ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and Telemundo being forthcoming about difficulties in the transition to digital TV (DTV)?

Q. Why hasn’t the government done door-to-door testing in rural and rural fringe areas? Such testing would show that most antennas will not work with the DTV signals.

Q. Who is going to tell older people and low-income families that their current TV configuration may require hundreds of dollars for a new antenna, or will they have to find that out on their own?

Q. Even with new antennas, over-the-air TV viewers may lose some of their favorite channels. Reporters and editors: Will that happen in rural areas near you?

On February 17^th people who use over-the-air television services with an analog signal will need a converter box to watch TV. On that date, TV stations will start sending only digital signals. Many people may already have purchased converter boxes with a government coupon worth $40.

Last May, Tom Allibone, a resident in a rural area in  Hunterdon County, New Jersey, got a Digital TV transition converter box for his over-the-air television. Allibone is a colleague of mine at Teletruth, a telecom watchdog group; he’s our director of audits. Tom never thought he’d lose his existing TV reception entirely—but that’s what happened. As he describes it, the old analog stations simply became a “No signal” on the converter box.

Allibone’s case was featured in local newspapers, along with Teletruth’s analysis of it. Teletruth then received tales of woe from customers in Hunterdon County and from people around the U.S. who also lost their signals with the new technology upgrade.

Allibone decided to take it one step further. He went to individual homes to see just how bad the transition was going to be for others in his area.

By the end of September, 29 Hunterdon County residents had called or emailed Teletruth. We followed up with interviews and on-site visits. We also examined information being supplied by the government, including an FCC report on one of the first community tests, in Wilmington, NC.

While not a large sample, our study clearly found a service problem. Virtually every house we went to stood to lose the New York stations even though Hunterdon is in the New York City metropolitan statistical area. Most customers would lose some, if not all, of their current Philadelphia coverage. (Click here for our report.)

Here’s a note we got: “After I emailed you I also emailed every single person with the FCC that I could find an email address for. I'm really, REALLY concerned for the safety of my loved ones who rely on the TV for emergency situations and news. It is also how my elderly family members stay ‘in touch’ with the outside world.”

It’s not clear how many people will be impacted by the DTV transition nationally. According to the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), 19.6 million households get over-the-air TV, and an additional 14.7 million homes have secondary over-the-air TV (such as sets not connected to satellite or cable, or even old portable TVs). That brings the total impacted up to 34 million—a little less than one-third of all U.S. homes. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) put the number at 13.5 million.

That’s bad enough in its own right, but it looks like a low-ball estimate made to downplay the harm and confusion. Centris, a research firm that has been following the transition, believes there are 17 million homes with over-the-air TVs. In all, how many are going to be impacted in rural and fringe areas? In testimony, FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin claimed that there are only 1.1 million homes at risk; FCC Commissioner Michael J. Copps believes it will be 1.5 million.  Centris comes in at 9.2 million. Teletruth thinks somewhat more than 10 million is a realistic figure, taking into account homes that may have cable or satellite reception for their main TVs but over-the-air reception for secondary ones.

The actual picture may be much worse. Our tests indicate that people in thousands of rural areas could lose most of the TV stations they currently watch for lack of signal strength. The problem will impact some communities more than others.

How did this situation arise?

Some time ago, the government aired a TV public service announcement saying the transition was a simple one—all that was needed is a converter box. But that’s not the case in rural areas. The FCC and NTIA never tested the converter boxes in rural or rural fringe areas and have only recently started to state that a new antenna may be needed in some cases.

Thia misinformation has been compounded by almost all media outlets. ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Telemundo and other cable stations are airing the government's information. They have failed to tell the public that rabbit-ear antgennas may not work or that new antennas may cost hundered of dollars and will be difficult to install.

For many, antennas—a now ancient technology—will once again be required in addition to a “converter box.” Worse, in rural areas and rural fringe areas, existing antennas may not be of much help. In fact, it may be that almost no antenna-based system will give enough signal strength in these areas to get the current programming.

When one considers that it is seniors and low income families that mostly use over–the-air television, who’s going to foot the new bill and supply the technical expertise for the transition?

The NTIA stated that the transition to digital was not supposed to inconvenience people and was supposed to work with their current configurations. “These guidelines,” NTIA said, “include the ability of consumers to continue receiving broadcast programming in the same receiving configuration (e.g., same household antenna, same location) as used for the existing analog reception.”

There are also a host of other painful issues pertaining to the transition. For example:

• The FCC’s first official test of the DTV transition was the Wilmington test, which did not adequately address rural fringe areas. The FCC’s chairman claimed that less than one percent of the households in Wilmington had any problems but actual calls and complaints suggest that the number was at least 13 percent.

• The FCC and NTIA have spent more than $1 billion and counting on the DTV campaign without testing the converter box and antenna configurations in rural fringe areas.

• The transition is going to take place in February, in the middle of winter. Some people may lose their reception and, with it, their major news source, during a snow storm. As one person put it – do we want to see old ladies climbing on ladders in the middle of winter?

There is also the question of possible conspiracy. Is the transition little more than a way of getting people to replace free, over-the-air TV with a cable or satellite subscription? Some cable companies have already started running ads saying that getting cable is a better way to go than making the DTV transition. Talk about a Digital divide.

Bruce Kushnick has been a telecom analyst for 28 years, and is currently the chairman of Teletruth, an independent customer advocacy group focusing on broadband and telecom issues, as well as executive director of New Networks Institute, a market research firm. E-mail: bruce@newnetworks.com

Comments

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retired rural resident Posted by Barbara Kurkowski 12/03/2008, 11:23 AM Is there any way to know ahead of time if there's a reception problem?

You should test your reception NOW Posted by jheartney 12/04/2008, 12:47 AM Yes. Digital broadcasts are already on the air. Get your converter NOW and test to see what reception you get. The article doesn't mention what sort of antenna setups were in use among the people experiencing poor reception. If it was just rabbit ears, they should try a rooftop antenna. Further, the antenna should be of the correct type needs to be properly aimed. With a good antenna you can get reception from quite a distance.

Teletruth Posted by Bruce Kushnick 12/04/2008, 01:22 AM First, let me be clear -- No currently working antenna, regardless of a large, working roof antenna, even with the proper orientation, was able to get specific New York channels in the Hunterdon county test -and Hunterdon is in the New York MSA -- If you read the report we created -- the link is in the story -- you'll be able to get a lot more of the details. http://www.teletruth.org/docs/DTVreport.doc ... Tom Allibone who tested actual boxes that were installed when he showed up, even with a working antenna, did not get the current antenna configuration to work for many of the currently viewed Phily stations - Hunterdon, NJ also receives Philadelphia stations. Even the new HDTV's did not work. And to best answer "retired rural resident" --- there has been no goverment testing of rural areas with actual boxes that we are aware of. In the case of our NJ test, it was clear that even with the box, specialized antennas may be required --- but, even the sites that the FCC and NTIA have listed about antennas are not accurate -- we proved that as we compared the results of our in-house tests with the information supplied about which stations may or may not be available. We do agree that customers should get a box and it should be tested. In some cases, the reception was actually better than the current over the air reception. However, the test the FCC did in Wilmington does not reflect rural areas and we have seen no actual data about rural areas to compare it to. Also, the real gloss-over has been that no one mentioned that it may cost hundreds of dollars and require technical expertise that has to do with complicated land contours or the fact that analog signals do not travel like digital ones, etc.-- So, it may not work or it may, but it may require a lot more money -- for those receiving Free TV today that just works. And try to find an 'antenna' repair guy -- there has been little call for it and so finding one who actually knows this transition stuff was not easy, even in New Jersey. If someone else reading this has data on rural tests, we would hope that they would post it.

Fellow, Berkman Center, Harvard University Posted by Doc Searls 12/04/2008, 05:48 AM Bruce, thanks for drawing attention to this. The switchover will be a disaster to a huge percentage of people who currently depend on over-the-air (OTA) TV signals, for the simple reasons that UHF has a shorter range than VHF, and DTV signals degrade far less gracefully than analog ones. In a long piece over at Linux Journal, I unpack both the physics and the delusional propaganda involved. Here's the link: http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/what-happens-a ... My final conclusion is that this will be one very big nail in the coffin of TV As We Knew It.

Director of Audits, Teletruth Posted by Tom Allibone 12/04/2008, 07:06 AM The "real-world" test drives conducted in Hunterdon County, NJ involved roof top antenna's only. Many of the participants did not have a rotor so the antenna was positioned in a fixed manner to receive the best analog signal. The FCC and NTIA have always known about the weak signal issues in rural hilly areas and that the digital signal contours do not overlay precisely with the existing analog signal contours. The NTIA final order requires that the digital converter work with the existing configuration. The real-world test drives that I conducted in Hunterdon County proves that the converter boxes will not work in weak signal areas across the country, so therefore they do not "comply" with NTIA's final order. Recently, the FCC added a consumer alert about the antenna issues and basically says that rabbit ear indoor antennas really need to be replaced with a roof top antenna. While I focused the study on rural signal issues, even the inner city households may not get DTV reception. A NJ consumer who was less than 20 miles from the Empire State building with clear line of site could not get a single DTV channel with his rabbit ears. Unfortunately, noone will guarantee that if you spend hundreds of dollars to buy a new antenna and rotor, that DTV will work. NTIA and the FCC tell consumers to go to www.antennaweb.org ...but I personally found the site to be very limited. I prefer to use www.tvfool.com ...and their technical folks worked very closely with me to assess my own situation. Bottomline....the NTIA national awareness campaign continues to mislead consumers into thinking the "converter box" is the solution. The manufacturers of the boxes knew that the boxes would not work with the "digital contour" standard and the broadcasters just play along with the same distortion message. Sadly, if you want to keep your free over-the-air TV service, you need to get the converter box now and begin the "experiment" to see what happens. Buying a new antenna may work in some cases but one of my test drive participants just wrote to me and said he paid several hundred dollars and still only gets 2 PBS stations. Another technical issue that has fallen thru the cracks is the coaxial cable in the house. Many homes have RG59 cable that needs to be replaced with RG6. I had a recent conversation with a technical manager with Comcast and they are aware of this situation with their own customers when they moved analog channels to the upper channels.

Posted by Susan Estrada 12/04/2008, 07:56 PM Got a dtv box for a tv in my office that currently gets 5 or so channels over the air. After hooking up the box, I got NO channels. Nothing. This is in a rather metropolitan area of San Diego County. It's not going to be pretty come Feb 2009.

Frustrated Posted by Mom's "techie" 12/05/2008, 11:49 AM My mother has lived in the same rural home in upstate NY for fifteen years, now. We bought her a tv with a digital tuner for xmas last year, figuring that would take care of the transition, she can't afford satellite and there is no cable. A while ago, the local channels began airing tests, saying "If your tv goes black, you are not ready for the transition." (more or less) Sure enough, her tv went black and she panicked. I saw this myself while visiting one night. The last time I was there, she's now getting several digital signals, including downscaled HD channels. So I'm not sure what the heck is going on with the tests the local channels were running! Finally, she lives in a very rural area with lots of hills and trees, her reception has always been snowy at best. Translated to digital, this means rather than a snowy picture and a little static, she image cuts out and sound drops entirely. I have to scoff when the marketers pushing digital tout how superior it is to analog. Superior if you want to split the same bandwidth to sell for more money.

FUD Posted by The Tim Channel 12/05/2008, 12:24 PM Fear, uncertainty and doubt. I made the switch a COUPLE YEARS ago. You may check my bona fides at AVSforum.com (user:timtimes) I live in freakin' Jackson Mississippi and we've had some hiccups OVER THE LAST TWO YEARS as stations test this and that. I still have issues with directionality using a ROOF MOUNTED antenna purchased for the sole purpose of OTA HD. I am told that these will abate when all of the stations go to full power on their HD signals. Overall, I am quite pleased, the sky is not falling, and you can't beat the price of the received content (free). Enjoy.

On the bright side... Posted by sharkcellar 12/05/2008, 12:38 PM This will possibly put a nice big and very needed dent in the number of Americans who watch TV. People need to get away from the toob and read a damn book or learn a second language or something. Screw TV.

No Signal in St Pete.. Posted by Nightrider 12/05/2008, 05:09 PM Early on, I bought the convertor and connected it to my TV. I lost all of my local stations but was able to pick up several Latino and Religious channels, none that I would watch. I was told that I needed a booster on my antenna. So I bought that. That didn't help. Then I was told that I needed a special antenna. I bought that and it didn't help either. So now I was out over $100 even with the $40 government coupon and I still didn't have any digital TV. Mind you, I am in the city of St Pete, not a rural area. Since I live in an apartment, I cannot install a roof antenna either... So it appears as though if I want TV after Feb 2009, I will be forced to pay for a cable or satellite service that I have never wanted or needed until now. This does feel like we are being forced into these services by our own government...

lose signal in bad weather Posted by Nelly1823 12/12/2008, 12:45 PM I live in a rural area of Southern VA and I recently installed my converter box. I use a rooftop antenna. I receive signals from Lynchburg Va (28 miles away) and Roanoke Va (51 miles away). I don't have any problem receiving my regular channels when the weather is good, but if it's very cloudy or rainy I can only get a few PBS channels. How does the weather effect the signal and what can I do about it?

Director of Audits, Teletruth Posted by Tom Allibone 12/13/2008, 09:12 AM Nelly1823 First, I am glad to hear that you get a reasonable signal and reception during fair weather. Unfortunately, the digital signals are not as resilient as the old analog and are subject to much more interference from obstacles such as hills,trees, leaves and buildings and much more. Even a flock of birds or an airplane flying overhead can cause the signal to degrade. My signal showed a slight improvement when the leaves fell off the trees. For starters, I would document each channel and use your signal meter on the converter box to see how strong each signal is. If you are getting a signal that is marginally in the average range, perhaps you could upgrade the antenna or add a pre-amp. Another critical technical issue that has not received adequate attention is the wiring inside your house or apartment. Many of the existing configurations I have discovered during our pilot study in Hunterdon County, showed that very few households were using RG6 cable. In fact, many were using the old ribbon type cable or RG59. To maximize the signal being received by your converter box, all these issues need to be looked at. Also, splitters will degrade the signal so you need to look at them as well. Unfortunately, the FCC and NTIA PSA's continue to ignore these issues and tell consumers to buy the converter. The daily PSA's currently running in Phila. and New York do not warn consumers about the antenna or wiring issues. I suspect that one of the reasons why the message does not address antenna issues or wiring is because the NTIA converter final rule requires that the converter box to work with consumers existing configuration. Our real world test drives show that is absolutely not happening. It is shameful and outrageous that the FCC and NTIA has not fallen our lead and performed real world test drives like Teletruth performed in Hunterdon County New Jersey. In anticipation that the digital tv tornado will strike at midnight on 2/17/09, I have already begun "search and rescue" planning. My community of approximately 13,000 over-the-air TV's will be decimated. Best of luck with your situation and lets hope the weather is nice on 2/18/09 when you wake up.

engineer Posted by rickrackrun 12/17/2008, 08:09 PM The new digital format is extremely sensitive to ghosting, or multipath, to give it it's proper title. In the current system I see 3 things that the receivers are very sensitive to. One is the tuner adapts to the environment when it is running, but this is a slow process, and if the antenna moves even a tiny amount(due to wind) it is enough for the receiver to barf. Related to this is if you have an indoor antenna and if you walk around you will see the channel quit working until you stop moving. So don't move. The second issue is that multipath can cause a notch in the received signal, and DTV signals are really sensitive to this. This is usually why sometimes an even strong signal cannot be received by the digital tv. You can usually fix this by moving your antenna around a few feet, which is really handy for a rooftop antenna. A third issue is that if there is an unwanted signal in the band on top of the tv signal the receiver can have issues if it is at some specific places. Hunt down whoever is doing this and deal with them. All of these are really well known issues with high speed digital transmission. This is not the first time we have been saddled with a poor TV system. In the early days of color TV the US adapted a system with an extreme sensitivity which is why people were usually purple or yellow, The Europeans saw what problems we had and made a simple change so their systems were much more robust. We never fixed ours, but eventually technology improved so the problem could be fixed. Some of these issues with the current DTV system can be improved by using 2 or more antennas in various ways, maybe by a much smarter receiver, or other techniques,which are far beyond the average person's knowledge. There are enough conspiracy theories running around as to why we have such a poor system, but I am pretty sure you will see an industry of digital TV improvement devices spring up in the next few years, just to get the coverage back to where we started.

HDTV in rural areas... Posted by G.T. Alligood 01/23/2009, 10:19 AM We live in rural area and are over 60 miles from the nearest TV station. Purchased 2 HD TVs. When they scanned for channels picked up two more channels than had on analog. Only lost one channel. With the sub channels broadcast by many stations now can receive 27 channels vs only 9 on analog. We use a roof antenna, the best available. Its the same we had been using. I did upgrade ALL my cables. Yes, it made a different. Use quality cables. They cost about twice as much but are worth it. I wonder about all the gloom and dome I read about on HDTV conversion. Based on my experience it was no problem, and the quality of picture is unbelievable. I am not alone as have several neighbors who have had no problems. I set up my mother in laws TV using a roof antenna with the same results as mine. She lives in town and had cable available but opt for the antenna. Cable in NOT available in our rural area.

Discommunicated in Jersey. Posted by Penny Manning 04/10/2009, 05:03 PM I enjoyed the article and comments. I live in Union County, New Jersey. I installed my convertor box (mind you, I have four units attached to a Stereo Receiver plus the antenna and TV to sort out). Bottom line is I get 2 or 3 out of a possible 80 channels that actually come in clear, 50 being one of them. If I move the antenna a wee bit, the Channel breaks up into little square pixels or whatever. If my upstairs neighbor moves about, signal is gone. My Channel mainstays: 7, 9, 11, 13, 31 are nowhere to be found. Their signals are too weak to come in. Of the 2 or so Channels I can get (if I'm lucky), I can't possibly watch them because they're not in English. My TV doesn't seem to be Closed Captioning capable. Perhaps part of the problem is that I live half a block from a park, have a trio of huge Oaks outside my windows (that's actually not a complaint--only they not only block the sun but possibly a much needed digital signal) on one side of the apt. a huge ornamental tree on the other side. That takes care of all windows. And while the apt. buildings are only two stories high, I live on the first floor and that has always been a problem even with analog. So, now I have no Analog reception (I moved my antennae two weeks ago and mysteriously lost my analog signals even though everything is plugged in securely. Gone just like that!) and my digital is almost non-existent. Who's benefitting? I can't afford cable, phone and internet or a new stupid TV and antennae. And in this economy? For Christ's Sake. Well, the good news is that I haven't watched the news in over weeks, but I do feel better about life and people, though (haha). It seems I will be feasting on rented and purchased videos, using my VCR to watch tired old tapes that hiss and creak and groan. Fortunately, I can watch some of my favorite shows via the internet (as long as I can afford it which is only a couple more months). Sure do miss The View. Well, Gee thanks so darn much GOV, I've never been so well-informed. I hope we're not invaded by Martians, Germans or angry convertor box owners, or about to be flattened by a stray airplane or meteor, because I won't know about it until I'm crawling out of the rubble.

DTV Investigator Posted by Highdefjeff 05/21/2009, 12:44 PM Digital's "perfect" picture, "All or nothing" nature, and superiority to analog technology has been marketing all along. Don't misunderstand me...I think a properly working digital system is great! What is NOT great, is the lack of information and the misinformation that is available to the public! Similar to the concealment and misinformation practices of the cigarette companies and the asbestos makers, the digital industry has deceived us in more ways than I can describe here. Here are several factors regarding antenna reception that few have seemed to consider. Engineers have always been aware that digital signals are weaker than analog signals and that they are affected by wind, ghosting (multi-path), and noise interference from radio waves and electrical sources. Despite this, no one considered that in the time since the first antennas came out that: 1. Wind speed and patterns have been increasing, thus decreasing the effectiveness of digital (UHF) signal. 2. New construction - from skyscrapers to houses and roads -have been built which have greatly increased the incident of multi-path signals. 3.With the addition of all of the electrical appliance growth, and especially cell phones and wireless gadgetry, Rf and EMI interference has increased beyond imagination. In addition, digital signal will be unreliable if you are using less than RG6 coaxial cable. For those individuals who have always used only an antenna, they are likely be using an old 2-wire flat cable, and in many rural instances that I've witnessed, hadn't even upgraded from their first VHF-only antenna. Combine these factors with with the poor converter boxes available off the shelf and you have a real problem. Poor signal equals poor DTV, SDTV or HDTV. Digital's "All or nothing" perfect digital picture (plus the cliff effect) is a MARKETING generalization gone awry! I have been uncovering deceptions in the industry of grand proportion. This transition, brought about as a money maker for the government, has been misinforming the public partially from ignorance and partially on purpose. Highdefjeff http://www.wowvision.tv ...

Digital Television is not working Posted by M, Evans 07/31/2009, 11:36 PM Since the digital transition in June 2009, there are more problems than anyone wants to admit. I bought the converter boxes. New digital tv antemma, router, a uhf specifid antenna for long range reception and amplifier. . We purchased an upgrade to a satalite service... to get any local television stations..The cost for the servise is now double, The persons who sold theidea yo congress must be laughing all the way to the bank. We live in an area where reception is nearly non-existant We lose what little bit of signal there is when it rains, and when it is ok, it is constantly pixalating. We are not alone. Before the change,we had 14 stations,without paid tv. Now we are lucky to get 1, a couple of times a week. And it has cost us alot of money, to get nothing,except to pay for something that was free before. What a wonderful world we live om now........

Posted by W.VAN ALST 09/25/2009, 09:27 PM THIS CONVERTER BOX THING IS ONE OF THE MOST REDICULAS THINGS I HAVE EVER SEEN. GOT IT HOOKED UP. THREE LOCAL CHANNELS WE DON'T WANT TO WATCH. OH YEA, RADAR MAP OF CENTRAL INDIANA. EVERYTIME YOU CHANGE ANTENNA DIRECTIONS YOU HAVE TO RESCAN. I'M FED UP WITH THE CRAP. SPENT OVER $200 DOLLARS FOR ANTENNA AND NEW CABLE I WAS TOLD I HAD TO CHANGE. STILL CHEAPER THAN DISH AND COMCAST IN OUR AREA. DISH HAS GONE UP FROM ABOUT $38---$77 FOR WHAT. GUESS I WILL JUST GO TO THE LIBRARY AND CHECK OUT SOME BOOKS AND MOVIES. JUST ABOUT $2.40 IN GAS A WEEK. AMEN

Indiana Fringe Posted by davehere 10/03/2009, 08:52 PM It's just terrible to watch. Sound cut out, image pixelate, "no digital signal" message, clicks and pops. Good part is I'm watching less television than before analog cutoff, and saving money by not knowing (or caring) what to spend it on! Submit a comment - Jump to top of list