The Dawn of Digital TV

by Robert M. Rast IEEE Spectrum, October 2005 Analog television prepares to meet its doom, vacating valuable real estate in the radio spectrum -- and the band rush begins. U.S. lawmakers are currently working to free up bandwidth for digital conversion -- a move that could ascribe analog broadcasting to the century's list of extinct technologies. A long line of consumer electronics and communications companies has emerged at the forefront of this congressional maneuver, anxious to bid on the 108 MHz of bandwidth that will lapse in the overthrow of analog broadcasting. Read more