FCC, Federal Communications Commission, right? Let's try Failure to Communicate Clearly. I'm sure anyone who watches TV has seen the commercials coercing people into buying a Digital Converter Box. The thought of HD television for everyone seems nice, but when the mandate interferes with rural folks who receive their news from “low-power” stations, I think it poses a problem. When the FCC says all TV will be digital in 2009, well what they meant to say is all “full-power” TV stations will be in HD. They neglected to inform the public that “low-power” TV stations, which are most commonly found in rural areas that lack access to major nationwide channels, will not have to be in HD. This may be good for small stations lacking the monetary resources to follow through with the upgrade, however this means that those stations will not be received by people with the converter boxes. Those who receive both the low-power and high-power stations will be able to see digital channels with the box, but not without it. On the other hand, they won't be able to watch analog channels with the box, but without it they will. This is obviously confusing not only in print but in practice. It seems as though there may have been a slight leaning towards the “high-power” stations, the same ones who pay more for their chunk of frequencies that the FCC some how staked out as theirs. All sarcasm aside, the real problem is that people whose only link to the world outside of their rural community is their local low-power TV station may not be able to receive the news they need when they need it without having to navigate the FCC's terrible solution to an already terrible infrastructure. It isn't that it's not possible to make a converter box with an analog pass-through feature, it's that it would have driven up the cost of the converter boxes. This would lead to a loss of profits for the manufacturers. Another question plaguing me, as it should be you, is how in the world did this semi-funded government mandate slip past all of us. The Unfunded Mandates Reform Act of 1995 pretty much cleared up this issue, but just like wars based on false pretenses this will slip past us as well. For most of you this switch shouldn't be a problem. I mean come on, Uncle Sam is giving us two $40 vouchers to buy these converter boxes, not too bad considering that half of all homes in the US have three or more TV's. But then that means that most of us will have to buy more converter boxes not to mention it's unknown as to whether or not the $40 will cover the cost of one box by itself. The sad part is no one will be up in arms until one day their TV just quits working, but by then it will be too late. You can always count on complacency...