FCC ‘Grassroots’ DTV Contracts Seen Helping Unaware Viewers
Six FCC DTV contract requests stand to help those unaware of the transition because they'll get visits at home from volunteers who'll walk them through steps to switch to digital, said panelists advising the agency on the transition. As expected (CD March 27 p11), the commission late Thursday released requests for quotations for the six regions of the country. Responses are due April 9.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
That’s not long for would-be bidders to prepare, but time to award contracts is short because of the looming June 12 DTV deadline, said Debra Berlyn, chair of the FCC Consumer Advisory Committee. “It would be wonderful if we had the luxury of more time,” said Berlyn, representing the DTV Transition Coalition on the panel. “But we also want to get the assistance out there before the transition.” Members of the committee’s DTV group likely will discuss by phone this week how to spread the word about the RFQs, Berlyn said. The committee wants to ensure non-profits and other groups are “aware of this opportunity so there can be a good response” to “get the idea going among the communities,” she said.
The FCC parceled out the requests into six regions, instead of making a single one for the entire country, partly to help groups that don’t have a nationwide reach participate, said an agency spokesman: “No. 1, it gives you trusted organizations. It also adds competition.” Though “sometimes the local organization has a better understanding of local needs,” a national group could bid on all six RFQs, he added. “We think there probably will be multiple vendors in each region” that win FCC contracts, the spokesman said.
Such a tack is needed, said Nixyvette Santini, an FCC panelist and Puerto Rico Telecommunications Regulatory Board commissioner. “You have to look for local organizations in order to be more effective in this particular assignment because this is an assignment that really needs people who know their community,” added Santini, representing the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners on the panel. The FCC should decide where to send in-home help based partly on where people who call 888-CALL-FCC for digital assistance live, she said. Puerto Rico is doing that with its assistance number, Santini said. San Juan is one of the 49 “hot spot” markets where the RFQs seek special attention.
Assistance won’t end with the DTV transition. The contracts, whose award is anticipated no later than May, will last through July 31, the requests said. They called for winners to offer “basic” in-home “installation services” on weekdays, weeknights and weekends. Visitors should be able to connect up to two digital converter boxes to analog TV sets and provide “basic guidance to the consumer on the operation” of the devices, the requests said. They said assistance should include “a basic level of orienting/reorienting” of antennas and scanning channels on converter boxes so a majority of stations previously received in analog can be seen in digital.