Verizon Wireless has reversed its position on the DTV switchover delay, and now says it will support pushing back the date. Multichannel News reports that CEO Ivan Seidenberg nows says delaying the switchover (currently February 17) for a few months would be okay with them. June 12 is the new day that everyone is talking about.
Apparently, the Verizon reversal came after a conversation with Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), incoming Chair of the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, who promised Seidenberg that the delay would only happen once. The Department of Commerce’s digital converter box program is out of money and consumers who contact the agency for a coupon good for $40 per box now get put on a waiting list.
Last week, the House Appropriations Committee released details of an $825 billion stimulus package, which included $650 million for Commerce’s coupon program.
Last year, Verizon paid $9.63 billion in a Federal Communications Commission spectrum auction, but the company, like AT&T, can’t use some of the airwaves because they are occupied by analog TV stations.
Qualcomm’s expansion of their MediaFLO service, on channel 55, is probably the most affected. Serious deployment of LTE in the 700 MHz or AWS band isn’t expected until late 2010. AT&T plans to hang on to HSPA for 2-3 more years.
Neither AT&T nor Verizon wants to be viewed as obstructionist when $6B is likely to be available for broadband expansion in President Obama’s economic stimulus package.
