@khandurian: I think the FCC mandate is for over-the-air (i.e., broadcast) channels only. Cable can keep pumping out analog if it wants to. It hardly matters with the STB situation.
@stevenl: I wouldn't mind if BHN went ahead and killed the analog channels. But they have to give me some STBs for free, 'cause I ain't payin' $8/month/set. Somehow I think that's the problem.
I wonder when BHN is going to get hit with a false-advertising suit, given that they advertise their digital cable prices without any asterisks or fine print saying that you must have a STB at an additional $8/month in order to actually use it. (I'm not saying BHN is any different from D*. The cable and satellite industries have sort of created this problem for themselves. The CE industry would love to build tuners into their kit, but everybody wants their own thing.)
Well its 6$ a month for the box rental and you dont have to rent it, you can pay 2$/month and get a cable card and use your own digital tuner ready tv to watch all the digital you want. and the first box is includeing in the price of the serivice so technicly they are advertiseing what you get. Pay for the digital get it on 1 tv, but basic/std on each tv. Now d* on the other hand fails to mention the charges per month per box they only throw up the big 19.99/month (does not include box rentals must activate each of the boxs they offer you or you pay some 300$ per box)
and khaund to answer your question that has been floating around for ages, first it was 2005 then 2010 then blah blah blah, until the goverment gets off their ass and mandates everyone changes (like they did with cable ready tvs) and use the same signals then its not going to happen. Plus their are millions of tv viewers who cant afford to buy diigtal ready tvs, nor afford a cable box. So unless it becomes profitable for the Cable companies to give free digital converters to customers, who want just the basic service (which is unlikely) then the cable companes will have to keep some analog bw open.
Also as far as cable cards go, you cant really get the simulcasting because the box is programmed to find the simulcast channels, whereas ch 3 is accutly not freq 55mhz like it is on analog its at 530mhz and mapped differntly. However depending on your TV and its digital tuner type it can be programmed to read the simulcast channels using the programming from the card. So check your manual some tvs have like a ch 1 and ch 1.1 which are the equiv of each other using the cable cards programming.