Back to the subject ( and I speak unofficially ) From a Conversation I had with a reliable source. The government actually wanted no more analog stations at the end or 06. However there were no laws in place and even attempting to pass laws was difficult. It would be somewhat like attempting to pass a law to stop the oil prices from rising. Anyway when it was obvious that the TV manufactures and then folks transmitting the signals were not going to cooperate with the 06 deadline. The FCC ( and other government agencies ) got busy and found enough folks in the House and Senate to vote the 09 deadline for digital TV signal into law. As I said before the government wanted ALL of the analog signals already, including radio. If my source is correct ( and who can be with great certainty now days ) There will be another push to vote into law, a regulation to force the radio networks to broadcast in a completely digital format. Look for it no later than 2012 I was told.
Heck the government even bought out NEXTEL's Megahertz band which takes affect before 2012. Now that is clout!
On a side note. I remember when AMD released the first Athlon chip to the public. I saw the AMD rep in the store and he was proudly displaying this huge chip to all the would look. About a month later I was in a Best Buy store and I asked when the chip would be made smaller so it would fit in a laptop. The sales people in the computer department basically laughed me out of the store and told me " That will never happen " I told them some how it would happen, i had faith in technology. As I recall 6 months later I walked into that same Best Buy and they were selling laptops with the Athlon chip in them. Funny thing, those sales people were not working there any more.
I guess technology wont be stopped by our opinion ( or our desire ) of it not to improve.
