One year from this past Sunday, millions of Americans will lose television reception unless they take action first. Screens will go blue or fuzzy and families will race to turn off the harsh, familiar sound that comes when a TV has no reception. Nearly 15 million Americans will lose reception unless they update their TV setup to receive the new digital signal.

Why the disruption? Because TV is going digital.

On Feb. 17, 2009, broadcasters will shut off their "over the air" analog transmissions and shift to exclusively digital feeds. Some have called this the biggest technical advance in television since the advent of color.

For the most part, the move to digital broadcast is a very good thing. Digital gives viewers a crisper picture. Also, moving to digital transmissions take up less of the public airwaves — the spectrum of frequencies that we use to broadcast all sorts of signal, from walkie-talkies to commercial radio.

Each frequency is like a lane on a mega-highway. Right now, television uses both digital and analog frequencies, which blocks a significant fraction of the highway and impedes other traffic. Because digital transmissions take up less space than analog, the shift will free up new capacity. Some of this will hopefully go to more channels and more local programming. Other parts will hopefully go to emergency first-responders to help policemen, firemen, and others coordinate their response to disasters.

But while we make this transition, we want to make sure that no family loses their TV reception.

How can you make sure your family TV is not at risk? First, if you already subscribe to a cable or satellite television provider, you're in good shape. Likewise, if you already own a television set equipped to receive digital transmissions, or if you own a cable box that gets digital signals, your transition should be seamless. When color TV arrived, people could keep their black-and-white television sets and still get reception — and many can do the same when TV goes digital.

However, if you get "over the air" transmission (rabbit ears) and if your TV is more than a few years old, it's likely you need to take action.

You have a couple of different options. Many will take this as an excuse to simply buy a new television. But, in tough economic times, we've decided to subsidize a converter box for older televisions.

The National Telecommunications Information Administration is providing up to two coupons per household, each worth $40, to households that need to take action. These coupons can be used to purchase a converter box from any one of several retail stores, including Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal-Mart, Kmart, RadioShack, Sears and Target. To find out more about how to receive your coupon, call the NTIA at 1-888-388-2009.

The solutions are easy, and they're readily available. But I'm worried about the fact that just one year away from a major change, there appears to be a lack of good, instructive information reaching consumers.

Consumers Union recently conducted a survey to determine how much consumers actually understand about the DTV process. The survey found that an alarming 74 percent of all consumers have major misconceptions about what the transition is and what they should do to prepare — and 36 percent don't know about it at all.

Many of these folks will find out on Feb. 17, when their TVs no longer work — but we want to head off these problems before they arise.

The Federal Communications Commission and the National Telecommunications Information Administration must do more to educate people as to who will be affected and what steps need to be taken to avoid losing television service.

As a member of the Senate Commerce Committee, I will continue to pressure the Administration to do a better, more comprehensive job educating the public on this issue.

The transition to digital television should be recognized as a moment of technological advancement in the field of communication — not as a failure of the government to communicate with people everywhere.