Appears randy tee's origonal post was accurate. There're plenty of articles out there now where the FCC spells out their plans of taking over (hijacking) a majority of broadcast frequencies for the sake of cell phone companies. Obviously cable and sat companies have something to gain here too, and are no doubt at least in part behind the lobbying. Here's one interview with FCC's Levin:
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article...roadcasting.php

The FCC spokesman plainly states their position that broadcast picture quality doesn't matter at all. Upsetting.
I love having lots and lots of options, I love competition and free enterprise, I'm ok with the history channel, and bbc is just, well, bbc.

With cable,sat, and wireless companys all for this- I now think it will happen. All the lobbyists will "buy" the votes they need. So I guess there is no reason to whine about it. I quit Directv a few months ago because To go to high dey my bill would jump $35. Why we mindlessly throw our money to them is wierd. Out of 200 channels we watch about 16 or 20. Yet we pay for infomercial channels and many others we never watch. How many re-runs of law and order can we take. They raise your bills and we blindly write the big check to keep feeding the monolith. I wonder at the big board meetings how hard they laugh at us viewers... "Lets add 50 more commercial channels and charge $50 more.. HA HA HA HA" and we bend over and smile real big as they give it to us.

The fcc has been re-allocating frequencies for years. The 800MHz broacast band (channels 70-83) dissappeared in the 80's to make way for the AMPS mobile phone. In June of 2009 the 700 MHz band (channels 52-69)was eliminated as part of the transition to digital television.

For those who are interested there's a (slightly-out-of-date) US frequncy allocation chart located on the right side of this page:
NTIA OSM Home

Refering to the chart:

Digital channels use the frequency bands that used to be occupied by channels 7-51. That's the lower UHF and the upper VHF bands. As noted above the upper UHF band has already been re-allocated.

Channels 14-20 have already be allocated as multipurpose landmobile/fixed/broadcast. I can see that happening to the rest of the UHF band also.

Channels 2-6 from 54 MHz to 88MHz are not really used for TV anymore. Some of this is already in use by other interests such as radio controlled airplanes.

Note: I've used the old channel references not the digital channel references. Digital channel 2 is NOT on the same frequency as the old analog channel 2.

Other countries made the decision to re-allocate the VHF bands since they are less suitable for digital TV. The US decided to re-allocate the upper UHF band becasue they could get more money for those frequncies.

'nuff said.

We're paying for tv every time we watch a commercial. If there's commercials in your programming then it's being broadcast over the air somewhere and the network could care less if you have cable or sat or an antenna, b/c they're getting paid with ratings. HBO etc (no commercials) requires subscribtion. Our ability to get free tv has been diminishing, and our ability to get free high def w/5.1 could soon be eliminated according to the FCC's own statements, So I don't think it's "nuff said" at all.
Like so many other issues the core is gov't by the oligolopies and for the oligopolies, not by the people and for the people any more. Cable is clearly a monopoly, with sat being an oligopoly that doesn't offer much competition either. All cable does is help maintain the cable on the poles and pay washington to maintain their license to steal from american consumers. Unfortuneatly, if we payed our own gov't to maintain the cable and offer programing (read socialized media) it would cost way way more and not work as well when it worked at all. This leaves anti-trust legislation as an option - what's left of it anyways - and maybe common sence like preventing the gov't from trying to regulate the internet, remove audio/video quality from over air broadcasting, etc etc.