Digital dilemma - [spectral lines]

When the U.S. Congress voted in 2006 to stop over-the-air broadcasts of analog television on 17 February 2009, it assured the public that going digital would be cheap and painless. It allocated US $1.5 billion to help fund the purchase of converter boxes for what was supposedly the tiny minority of U.S. households that don't subscribe to a cable or satellite television service. But if my experience is typical, the coupons are just the first step in a conversion that will be neither painless nor, in the long run, cheap.