The digital TV transition might be
confusing sales clerks nationwide, but if there's anything that most people understand, it's cold, hard cash -- and if you
applied for one of the FCC's
switchover coupons, you might want to start checking that mailbox: the $40 vouchers are being mailed out soon. 9,700 stores are already set to accept the coupon for
approved digital TV tuners next week, with another 7,000 to come online in the next few months. Of course, only over-the-air television viewers are affected -- cable and satellite customers will continue to
be swindled mercilessly by Comcast get TV with no disruption at all when analog broadcasts are switched off in 2009.
Personally, we think the whole three-month expiration on these government-issued DTV vouchers is pretty pointless, but Iowa senators Charles Grassley and Tom Harkin are pleading with the National Telecommunications Information Administration for a different reason. The duo asserts that Iowa citizens badly affected by the recent severe weather shouldn't have to flip through whatever is left of their belongings in order to scrounge up pieces of a $40 coupon; they suggest that simply reissuing them would be a much better alternative. Can't say that we disagree there, but senators, if you two manage to get this by the NTIA, how's about wringing their arm to get those expiration dates removed as well?
