Digital Switch Over Leaves Residents Up In Arms

The first town in the US to receive exclusively digital only broadcasting was met with mixed reactions by it’s residents as many jammed phone lines wondering what on earth was going on when their TV’s suddenly stopped working.

Many residents of Wilmington, North Carolina were either unprepared for the analogue switch off or were experiencing problems with their digital set top boxes designed to convert older non digital ready TV’s.

Teething problems had been anticpated but the roll out seemed to show one thing that digital TV is coming soon and once the issues are sorted out the days of analogue TV seem numbered. The official swith over date for the US is February 17th 2009 and the Federal Communications Commission and broadcasters are working together than things go without a hitch.

The toll free number set up for Wilmington residents had around 100 calls in the first few hours after the shutdown and these related mainly to issues with the use of set top boxes. So it seems with around 14,000 over air users making the switch over that things have gone pretty smoothly.