Consumers weren't adopting a technology that the government thought they should be adopting quickly, so government stepped in and said, you're going to adopt, and we're going to force you to adopt by basically making your television sets go blank if you don't either buy a digital TV or buy a converter box.
On top of that, they're making the coupons available at the beginning of 2008, a year before the transition even occurs, and they're only making them available for three months.
Part of the problem is how far behind we are in broadband development. We still don't have a national broadband policy in this country to make it available to Americans at affordable prices.
There needs to be an explicit prohibition on discriminatory pricing.
The consumer compensation program established in this program is unworkable, unfair, and unacceptable to consumers. It provides only a fraction of the funds needed to compensate consumers for the costs of a digital transition they never asked for.
We don't think that's fair if the government doesn't compensate them for the cost of keeping those sets working.
That's one issue that people haven't really recognized. This isn't about helping people upgrade technology. It's just about keeping what you have working when it stops working not through any fault of the electronics or the consumer, but through a government action.
If you are forcing consumers to adopt new technology -- whether or not they are ready -- you ought to provide full compensation for everyone.
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