Marketing Sociologist makes PC World concerning Wimax, FLO technology that will deliver first run movies to cell phones and lack of DTV service

By Grant Gross
For marketing consultant Richard Kelleher, a transition from analog to digital television in the U.S. hasn't gone smoothly.

Kelleher, who lives in the Phoenix area, is one of millions of U.S. residents who have purchased converter boxes so that their television sets can receive digital broadcasts. U.S. televisions will stop broadcasting analog signals on Friday.

Kelleher received about 10 analog stations, and after hooking up the converter box, he receives only three stations, two of them Spanish-language stations, he said. "With the conversion, the government must be enforcing an agenda of teaching me Spanish," said Kelleher, who calls himself a marketing sociologist. "I live in northeast Phoenix, where there is a mountain range between my home and the [TV] station towers."

Most people receiving over-the-air broadcasts will need to purchase converter boxes to continue to receive TV signals after analog signals go dark Friday. The U.S. government continues to offer coupons to help with the cost of the US$50 to $80 converter boxes. Television sets hooked up to cable or satellite service will not need converter boxes.

With his TV set connected to the converter box, Kelleher gets a "station unavailable" message on several channels. He has an indoor antenna, and has no plans to crawl up on his townhouse roof to install an outdoor antenna, he said. He watches about two hours of TV a week and doesn't want to spend the money to buy cable service.

"Thank God for Internet," he said. "I'm paying the $40 for wireless broadband instead of cable. Most shows are on the Internet the next day."

Kelleher is not alone, according to DTV Across America, a group focused on providing information about the DTV transition. An estimated 2 million to 4 million U.S. households will lose TV signals Friday because they have not purchased a converter box, but others will lose stations because they lack an adequate outdoor antenna, the group said.

Congress pushed for U.S. TV stations to abandon the spectrum because the 700MHz band is some of the best spectrum for wireless broadband services. Lawmakers were concerned that emergency response agencies couldn't communicate with each other during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the U.S., largely because they were using communication devices on different areas of the spectrum.

Kelleher doesn't understand why much of the spectrum went to mobile phone carriers. "There was no reason DTV and regular TV couldn't coexist on the current frequency," he said. "See how powerful the cell phone lobby is -- they have the power to have the FCC move everything for them."

I want to thank Grant Gross for including me and Peter Shankman’s genius idea, Help A Reporter Out (HARO) for enabling all this – third time Marketing Sociologist gets featured nationally thanks to Shankman’s service.

To clarify, I said Cell Phone companies got FCC to move TV stations for both Wimax and FLO technology – which allows cell phones to deliver movies as well as television shows – primarily first run movies on your cell phone – now you know the future.

Still, why is there no television Bluetooth capable?