DTV draft legislation later this week

Looks like the DTV legislative action expected for 9/16 is pushed back due to Katrina. That's a good choice of priorities. Senator Ted Stevens from Alaska will be forwarding a draft of DTV legislation to his fellow senators this week. His hope is to expedite the DTV transition, which currently looks like it will be over in 2009.

There's no indication yet if cable companies will be required to carry local digital stations, i.e.: "must-carry" provisions. After the DTV legislation, there is hope of utilizing the returned analog bandwidth for an emergency communications network to assist with national issues and catastrophic events. Stevens likens that vision to the national weather systems that we have in place today.