Digital TV

[James48843]

Digital TV hot line gets 700,000 calls over switch

LOS ANGELES - Nearly 700,000 calls were received by a federal hot line this week from people confused about the nationwide switch from analog to digital TV broadcasts that occurred Friday.

The Federal Communications Commission said Saturday that about 317,450 calls went into the help line, 1-888-CALL-FCC, on Friday alone, the day analog signals were cut off.

About a third of the calls were about federal coupons to pay for digital converter boxes, an indication that at least 100,000 people still didn't have the right equipment to receive digital signals.

Another third of the calls were handled by live agents, and 30 percent of those were about how to operate the converter boxes. The FCC said most of the converter box questions were resolved when callers were told to re-scan the airwaves for digital frequencies.

Over 20 percent of the live calls were about reception issues.
"Our job is far from over," acting FCC Chairman Michael Copps said in a statement. "This transition is not a one-day affair. We have known about re-scanning and reception issues for some time and have been doing our best to get the word out."

The largest volume of calls came from the Chicago area, followed by Dallas-Ft Worth.

With 4,000 FCC staffers manning the phones Friday, the average wait time per call was 4.6 minutes.

More: http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090613/ap_on_hi_te/us_digital_tv_transition
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Can you believe it? After all the hype, there were still hundreds of thousands of people who waited until their sets went dark to call and ask for a coupon for a converter box.....

 

[PessOptimist]

Digital TV hot line gets 700,000 calls over switch

LOS ANGELES - Nearly 700,000 calls were received by a federal hot line this week from people confused about the nationwide switch from analog to digital TV broadcasts that occurred Friday...


Can you believe it? After all the hype, there were still hundreds of thousands of people who waited until their sets went dark to call and ask for a coupon for a converter box.....

Why, yes I can believe it. Perhaps they were waiting for the new administration to buy them a new TV?

I'm sure it was a vast right wing conspiracy to keep people from watching reality shows and some talk shows.

 

[ChemEng]

With 4,000 FCC staffers manning the phones Friday, the average wait time per call was 4.6 minutes.

That is an extremely poor service quality level for an event this large that they knew was coming. They should be ashamed of themselves for not better preparing...

 

[PessOptimist]

That is an extremely poor service quality level for an event this large that they knew was coming. They should be ashamed of themselves for not better preparing...

I submit to you that the people whining about no TV should have been better prepared. This thing has been advertised for a long, long time and the implementation date was moved from February to June.

The FCC first announced it in 1996 and the "Consumer Education Iititative" started in 2004.

Anyone who ever watches broadcast stations, over the air or via cable or satellite, has seen numerous tests at all hours of the day where you are plainly told "if your TV went blank or you lost reception you need a converter".

So, you believe it is the FCCs fault for not having enough people to handle the volume of calls from "citizens" who somehow did not know about the fact their TV would no longer work after Friday?

 

[Buster]

700,000 dumb asses...I wonder if these were the same dumb ass people that stayed behind in Super Dome?

This Digital TV conversion was told of happening almost a year ago..and the ADs on TV were starting to driving me crazy will the constant reminders to get ready for the switch...

 

[CountryBoy]

I submit to you that the people whining about no TV should have been better prepared. This thing has been advertised for a long, long time and the implementation date was moved from February to June.

The FCC first announced it in 1996 and the "Consumer Education Iititative" started in 2004.

Anyone who ever watches broadcast stations, over the air or via cable or satellite, has seen numerous tests at all hours of the day where you are plainly told "if your TV went blank or you lost reception you need a converter".

So, you believe it is the FCCs fault for not having enough people to handle the volume of calls from "citizens" who somehow did not know about the fact their TV would no longer work after Friday?

That is a picture perfect, excuse the pun, of the difference between the socialist nanny stater and the person who takes personal responsibility. :laugh: Grow up for goodness sake and take the dang thumb outta your mouth. You're fricking adults now, act like it. Heck these people knew since Feb that this was going to happen for the 2nd! time, yet the socialist/libs blame big business for not doing a better job of hand holding, when these folks should've have done it themselves.

We are raising a bunch of snively whiners, who expect the nanny state to do it all for them. Heck I bet they thought that bHo should've sent someone over to their house and hooked it up for them.

It's a sad state of affairs and one big reason that we're going down the crapper, way to go socialist. Dang how did these people survive the change form LP's, to 8 Track to Cassette to CD with the nanny state loving socialist not there to hold the wittle hands and wipe the tears awy for them.

Grow up and take some personal responsibility. I'm so tired of everything being one sides fault. Both sides have caused this mess, but to hear from a couple of folks here, it's that evil Bush and big business who is responsible for every worldly problem. These people have to wake up also or nothing will be worked out. There's plenty of blame to go around, but this converter box thing is nothing but the lack of responsibility by a bunch of lazy louts the the socialist want to hand hold forever.

Weekly rant over.

CB

 

[ChemEng]

I submit to you that the people whining about no TV should have been better prepared.

By watching more tv? I would argue that in a day of DVRs and "time shifting", depending on a commercial to deliver a message is probably not the best way to do it.

Anyone who ever watches broadcast stations, over the air or via cable or satellite, has seen numerous tests at all hours of the day where you are plainly told "if your TV went blank or you lost reception you need a converter".

My local stations didn't havent any commercials like these. They were more like badly scripted Sprint commercials and were easily overlooked like every other commercial.

So, you believe it is the FCCs fault for not having enough people to handle the volume of calls from "citizens" who somehow did not know about the fact their TV would no longer work after Friday?

Yes. If the government is going to make these changes to the public information infrastructure, then they also should be prepared to assist in the change directly on a 1 for 1 basis.

The idea that those people should have watched more tv to know what is going on and how to plan for it is strictly crazy talk. Lets not even bring into it the misinformation that was being promulgated by the cable companies themselves.

 

[McDuck]

That is an extremely poor service quality level for an event this large that they knew was coming. They should be ashamed of themselves for not better preparing...

A wait time of 5 minutes is great. I think the gov did way too much hand-holding.

These people probably were also taken by the joke about if you want vote for Laura Hall then show up at the poll on Wednesday.

 

[ChemEng]

A wait time of 5 minutes is great.

It doesn't say everyone waited 5 minutes. It says the average wait time was 5 minutes. There is a big difference that means a whole bunch of the 700,000 waited longer than 5 minutes. It also means that of those, a whole bunch waited much longer than 5 minutes.

 

[McDuck]

We are raising a bunch of snively whiners, who expect the nanny state to do it all for them. Heck I bet they thought that bHo should've sent someone over to their house and hooked it up for them.

Ditto on that.

They were probably about to go postal about not getting to watch Jerry Springer, that Democrat from Ohio. I was surprised when he decided not to run for Senator. Hell we got Teddy Kennedy or maybe Al Franken, Springer is cleaner than those two perverts.

 

[McDuck]

It doesn't say everyone waited 5 minutes. It says the average wait time was 5 minutes. There is a big difference that means a whole bunch of the 700,000 waited longer than 5 minutes. It also means that of those, a whole bunch waited much longer than 5 minutes.

It also means that of those, a whole bunch waited much shorter than 5 minutes.

Hey, did you show up to vote on Wednesday?

 

[ChemEng]

It also means that of those, a whole bunch waited much shorter than 5 minutes.

Tell you what--the next times you call a company and get put in a queue, start the watch. You'll be surprised at how quickly they get you through.

I had the great displeasure of working at a call center for an insurance company in college, and we had to explain each instance that a phone wasn't picked up on the first ring. (In other words, the average wait time was 1 ring.)

This 5 minutes of waiting just shows a lack of planning for an event they planned. Clearly the solution is that all those callers should have watched more television...

 

[Buster]

If those 700,000 lazy dumb asses didn't watch TV or missed this information, then how do they know if they ever had TV reception in the first place?? funny how 700,000 people all realized at the same time in nano seconds of the switch and began calling....To suggest they DVR'd it and edited out commercials is preposterous, as this was a 24/7 campaign..I can't understand making excuses for these Dumb Asses, when it was advertised in all out notification campaigns across the country..not only in scripted commercials on TV, radio and on Billboards, even the local TV stations and their staff (news people) constantly informed us of the impending switch to Digital TV....

Like I said, I was sick of hearing about it..

 

[PessOptimist]

ChemEng it is obvious you haven't called Microsoft or Garmin tech support recently. A two HOUR wait time is not abnormal. If you choose the option to leave a voice mail you wait weeks.

CB if you visit DTV.gov you will find that the government will send someone over to your house to hook it up. Likely takes more than 5 minutes though.

ChemEng you will never change your belief that this is all the federal government's fault. Most of your arguments don't hold up, like DVR or DIGITAL Video Recorder, being why the announcements were missed. If people have DVRs they obviously have a source for DIGITAL video. Therefore no problem with the changover.

This was only TV. Not like it is a necessary part of the infrastructure. IMO.
Don't come back with any statement about emergency public service announcements cause if they missed the changeover announcemants they will surely ignore the duck, cover and kiss your a** goodbye announcements.

So, agree to disagree and ignore the fact that some of our fellow citizens want the government to do everything for them.

Since your name suggests some technical competence, why aren't you out there helping these helpless people?

 

[Buster]

 

[CountryBoy]

CB if you visit DTV.gov you will find that the government will send someone over to your house to hook it up. Likely takes more than 5 minutes though.

Thanks PessOptimist,

But I was able to muddle thru back in Feb when it was first scheduled to go on line, so I was ready, since my area went digital then. I may live in the country, but not a fricking cave or under a rock, so I was well informed of the switchover for almost a year. It was really impossible to miss, it you had half a brain.

CB

 

[ChemEng]

ChemEng it is obvious you haven't called Microsoft or Garmin tech support recently. A two HOUR wait time is not abnormal. If you choose the option to leave a voice mail you wait weeks.

I'm not sure the "my anecdotal experiences are better than your anecdotal experiences" framework is going to advance any position.

ChemEng you will never change your belief that this is all the federal government's fault. Most of your arguments don't hold up, like DVR or DIGITAL Video Recorder, being why the announcements were missed. If people have DVRs they obviously have a source for DIGITAL video. Therefore no problem with the changover.

The "D" means it records in a digital format and has nothing to do with the quality of signal recieved. When I worked at Fort Knox (also last time I had cable), I had a DVR without the Digital Cable upgrade.

This was only TV. Not like it is a necessary part of the infrastructure. IMO. Don't come back with any statement about emergency public service announcements cause if they missed the changeover announcemants they will surely ignore the duck, cover and kiss your a** goodbye announcements.

Im not sure you can defend the position that TV isn't a necessary part of the infrastructure. It appears that tv is the focal point (with internet a close second) of our infrastructure. If the internet would be able to narrowcast as well as television, then I would reverse the two.

So, agree to disagree and ignore the fact that some of our fellow citizens want the government to do everything for them.

No disagreements here. But the claim that this "some" in the case of tv transition is 700,000 people is very close to hyperbole. Bottom line is that the government overestimated the effectiveness of their commercials and failed to close the loop and make it happen.

Clearly its the fault of those 700,000 people because they didn't watch enough tv to become fully informed.

Since your name suggests some technical competence, why aren't you out there helping these helpless people?

Personal insults will get you everywhere on these boards. If you want to talk my credentials, then PM would be the forum to do it.

 

[PessOptimist]

Since your name suggests some technical competence, why aren't you out there helping these helpless people?

Personal insults will get you everywhere on these boards. If you want to talk my credentials, then PM would be the forum to do it.

You are absolutely right. I apologize for the statement.

I have no idea why I have gotten so worked up about this issue when there are so many other problems to deal with right now.

 

[PessOptimist]

Thanks PessOptimist,

But I was able to muddle thru back in Feb when it was first scheduled to go on line, so I was ready, since my area went digital then. I may live in the country, but not a fricking cave or under a rock, so I was well informed of the switchover for almost a year. It was really impossible to miss, it you had half a brain.

CB

CB I did not mean to imply you needed help, only that according to the web site it is available to those that do need help.

 

[CountryBoy]

CB I did not mean to imply you needed help, only that according to the web site it is available to those that do need help.

Oh I know you didn't mean that, I was just being sarcastic, I should've used the to show what I was trying to say.

CB