B Stone-e-trade isn't sending out certs. They are sending requests for certs on behalf of their account holders to the TA. It is the TA's responsibility to issue and mail the certs, and with the size of the TA operation and the volume of requests there is no way they will all be processed by 12/31. E*trade is simply stating the "normal" time needed to obtain a paper cert.
People will be lucky if this utterly unnecessary exercise is finished in nine months, and even then there will be failures due to stale addresses and to simple human error.
Market Data 
Markets 
AI
