U.S. President George Bush has set the date that analogue TV will be cut off in the U.S, leaving a large chunk of highly sought after radio spectrum available for services such as mobile broadband applications and emergency and military services.
While a proposed cut off date has been in place in the UK for a while now it was only this week that a new legislation was signed by President Bush. The legislation states that by February 19th 2009, all broadcasters must end transmission of analogue television signals and move to all-digital broadcasts. Also included in the legislation is a scheme worth $1.5 billion offering households up to two $40 vouchers for use in upgrading television sets so that they can receive a digital signal.
The valuable radio spectrum left over will be auctioned off to the highest bidder. According to Yahoo the upper-700-MHz band would allow wireless signals to travel four to five times as far as existing mobile phone signals can, which would make them suitable for companies looking to offer mobile wireless broadband.
View: National Association of Broadcasters
In the UK the analogue switch off date will be in between 2008 and
2012, but many people are unaware that this is happening and digital
television isn't available in all areas. BBC Two will be the first channel to go digital only out of the five terrestrial channels.
