[ppml] Policy Proposal: IPv4 Transfer Policy Proposal

[Jon Radel]

Scott Leibrand wrote:
> Ted Mittelstaedt wrote:
>
>   
>> That is why the HD-TV changeover is the way it is.  I don't want to
>> beat a dead horse but I keep returning to this analogy because it's
>> an example of a technological upgrade done properly.  ALL of the
>> consmers get screwed over ALL at the SAME time, so there isn't any
>> of this nonsense of upsetting the various broadcasters markets -
>> your not for example increasing ABC's market share because NBC went
>> to HD-TV before they did.  Everyone goes to it all at the same time.
>> Consumers have no recourse but to spend the money for converters or
>> new TV's.  The increased content is available all at the same time.
>>     
>
>
> Don't most HDTVs get hooked up to Cable or Satellite networks, rather
> than broadcast?  And isn't the flag-day required broadcast conversion
> just to *digital* broadcasting, not to *HD*?  I don't own a TV (analog
> or digital, SD or HD) myself, but I get the impression that the switch
> to HD is actually being driven by demand from Cable and Satellite users
> who want to watch the HD programming they provide.
>   
I suspect that cable and satellite providers who want an excuse to
charge yet another premium charge have a role too.....

That said, while there are certainly admirable aspects to the management
of the conversion from analog to digital broadcast, dissemination of
correct, succinct, and useful information on what is really going on is
weak and not something that I'd advocate emulating.  I expect loud
squealing by owners of fancy HD TVs (or more precisely, HDTV Monitors
instead of HDTVs) who bought them early enough to get only an analog
tuner to grow to deafening volumes just any day now.  Or maybe not.  Are
99.9% of them hooked up to cable boxes which act as converters?  I
certainly don't know, not that that matters.  What does matter is that
most of the people in industry, at least those who interface with the
public, either don't know what is going on and/or are willfully
misleading people.  See stories like
http://www.baltimoresun.com/business/bal-tv0213,0,7189012.story where 4
out of 5 clerks selling TVs were giving out incorrect information.  Out
of curiosity, a couple of weeks ago I asked somebody who works customer
service in one of my local cable provider's storefronts how long I'd be
getting analog signal from my cable company.  I got the impression that
he didn't even understand the question.  (I believe the FCC mandates
that cable providers continue providing core channels in analog until
2012--oops, no, actually that impression I got from another sloppy
newspaper article, what the FCC actually says is subtly, but critically,
different.  See http://www.dtv.gov/ for more.)

And, yes, Scott, the February 17, 2009 flag day is when over-the-air
analog broadcasts stop and, presumably, any TV broadcast station which
wishes to remain in business has long since started broadcasting a
digital signal.  No, Ted, not everyone *started* or will start HD
broadcast at the same time.

Of course, we've had issues ourselves.  I suspect, on the basis of no
hard evidence at all, that one of the reasons we have significant
pockets of belief that IPv4 addresses will not run out soon enough to
worry about yet, is that we already did a cycle of "the sky is falling"
/ oh, NAT and CIDR will allow us to shuffle things / never mind, the
duct tape and chewing gum are holding out, everybody get back to making
money.  I bet lots of people are waiting for somebody very clever to
invent bailing wire, when they bother thinking about IP addresses at all.

--Jon Radel