He failed to mention that the majority of consumer complaints related to areas where the FCC seems to have dropped the ball. The agency's call centers fielded more than 70,000 calls on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of last week. Most of them were about either the FCC-run voucher program or reception problems.
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Preparing for the US DTV Transition |
On Wednesday, February 18 phone calls to the FCC shifted from boxes to broadcasts. Since many TV stations waited until midnight on the 17th to turn off analog broadcasts off, this was the first day many viewers were forced to use their converters.
In total close to half of all callers on Wednesday had reception problems. Nearly a third complained they couldn't receive any channels, didn't have a good enough antenna, or were getting a weak signal. Almost 17% said they were unable to get a specific station they wanted to watch.
There have been warnings from numerous experts that signal strength would be an issue for many viewers, but the FCC has stood by their optimistic estimates indicating most viewers would still be able to tune in the same stations they watched in analog form.