There is a US government plan to provide 10 millions subsidized digital MOTOROLA STB for poor people who cann't afford the new Digital TV. The subsidy will be approx. US$ 670 Millions in 2007.
US broadcast (H)DTV is ATSC and one-way.
Set-top boxes have been rare and expensive because of low demand, but Radio Shack recently had one on clearance for $89 or so. The secondary problem is that the ATSC broadcasts do occupy separate channel assignments with separate transmitters, and most broadcasters have yet to crank up the output power on those because, dur, there aren't any viewers. Here in the Connecticut 'suburbs' of NYC, I get two major networks plus UPN and PBS, while analog pulls in at least 20 channels, some of which might even be sitting on the NY stations' -DT assignments.
Upshot is that ATSC does seem to work really well in nasty spots for analog (due to multipath, etc), and when it works it's crystal-clear; I can get two of those stations in a valley town up north where analog's unviewable. The five other people who still watch broadcast (rather than getting their broadcast networks from satellite or cable) are probably going to get shiny new flat-panels soon, and those are finally starting to include ATSC tuners, which should drive demand.
[I'm also starting to think the decision to allow multiple SD subchannels was smart, even as it gave a 'free pass' to the major players -- they certainly don't have content to fill them with, so let them maintain the transmitters and infrastructure and sell their extra capacity to smaller, potentially independent fish.]
@umisef, is Australia's system 'off-air' or DVB satellite?
