Need a Digital TV Converter Coupon? They’re Going Fast
According to Reuters, U.S. consumers who wait too long to request government coupons to subsidize converter boxes for the digital television transition in February may come up empty-handed. The deadline to order the converter boxes is Dec. 31.
The Department of Commerce official overseeing the program said that because of a last-minute rush of requests for the coupons that help offset the cost of the converters, demand may exceed supply in January.
The transition will happen Feb. 17, 2009, to enable the government to utilize public airwaves for other uses such as police and fire departments.
Certain converters are approved for purchase with the subsidy coupons.
More TVs are also expected to be brought for recycling, as viewers look to upgrade their old models for more modern units. At the minimum, any analog TV (units that use antennae to tune channels) will need converters to help them utilize the soon-to-be mandatory digital signals.
About 15 percent of the population rely on analog-only signals and will need these converters, which range in price from $40 to $90 dollars.
The program to subsidize the converter boxes is likely to reach the $1.34 billion limit of its budgetary authority in the first week of January, said Meredith Attwell Baker, acting assistant secretary for Communications and Information at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration.
Apparently, once the limit is reached, the program will hold coupon requests until funds from unredeemed coupons become available, according to Baker in a Dec. 24 letter to Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who chairs the House subcommittee on telecommunications and Internet matters.
