I too have spoken with a source that is involved with ISP comms and STARCOM 21 installations here in the Western Illinois area....same deal....late December is the "target date" for full completion and switch over to STARCOM in this region, but this person stated that a late December date is an optimistic timeframe at this point, assuming no major road blocks arise.
On another note, while the current plans are for most of the ISP digital comms to be "in the clear," a small but vocal minority has apparently raised concerns (basically regarding homeland security and criminals) about a general lack of encryption and the security concerns that come with being non-encrypted, and thus I have been informed that a totally encrypted system is not out of the question sometime down the road. It's apparent that an increasing number of individuals who engage in criminal acts are being caught using scanners in some fashion to conduct their criminal activities, so this trend is hurting our hobby too! I doubt $400-$600 for a new digital scanner is going to deter the hard core offenders who really want an edge on the law..go figure.
