The way the news has been reporting this, anybody would think its something new... Typical media, 3 or 4 years behind everybody else

I would have switched over to freeview when it was first announced, as where I live, our TV reception is rubbish.. And its not helped by the HUGE Irish TV transmitter on the mountain overlooking us (I live on the border of Northern ireland) but,freeview is not available here, and when I enquired as to why, I was bluntly told it was a "Northern Ireland assembly problem"

what? that lot? we have no hope then... maybe thats why we aint getting switched off until 2012
EDIT:
Oh, Floppy bootstamp, you speak of dual frequency TV's, they are still made for our market, (in fact its all we ever had around here)