I didn't think the government had actually committed to a switch-off of analogue radio?

Given that DrAB (certainly as implemented in this country) seems to have lost most of its' backing I wonder if it will ever happen.

Kevin

Kevin Wood wrote on 30. Mar 2010 at 09:32:

And you think that would stop this government from culling it?

mudflap wrote on 30. Mar 2010 at 10:12:


It's already here, the analogue has already been switched off up here. 

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It's worse than that. We're getting into Ofcom's territory here. And I've never experienced a more incompetent bunch of batsrads. They make the government look competent and squeaky clean.

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The difference being that digital TV has brought significant benefits to the consumer. Better picture quality, on the whole, more channels, a handful of which are actually watchable, the possibility of some HD'ish content, decent DPG functionality so you don't have to go through the pain of teletext just to see what's on next, etc...

Give the consumer enough carrots and they'll switch over happily.

DAB (as implemented in the UK) is already obsolete, so many of the DAB sets already sold will have to be binned sooner or later. It gives worse sound quality than analogue FM, before you try to cram in more channels. DAB+ might give you more channels per unit bandwidth with today's poor sound quality but at the expense of compatibility with the earlier DAB sets.

Even if you give the customer more channels, someone has to provide content, and airtime on DAB is expensive so they are all bailing out.

Meanwhile, anywhere there's an internet connection you can listen to practically any radio station in the world at DAB or better levels of sound quality using a PC or Wi-Fi radio. Any "digital radio" I buy will be going down this route, not DAB.

.. Which just leaves car audio. Cars have a lifetime of 15 years or so, so DAB can take over 15 years after cars are being equipped 100% with DAB radios from new. When will that be?

DAB was rushed out in the UK based on a promise that it would relinquish bandwidth that OFCOM could make a fortune out of selling. Had we taken a more considered approach we might have spotted the fact that it's a white elephant and that the last bandwidth selloff left a lot of fingers burnt, so the silly bidding is unlikely to be repeated - especially at 100MHz where it's not that useful for cellular networks.

Kevin

i like the fact it says using an obsolete fm in your area, or something like that!

I am guessing they will all be obsolete then! lol

The Lords communications committee reports on Guardian website..

"there will be as many as 100m radios that are no longer required once digital switchover has occurred – though many people may decide to hold onto their old radios to listen to the local and community FM stations that will spring up once the national stations have moved to digital."

bags i Radio Harrow for Prog! 




http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/29/digital-radio-switchover-scrappage

This is pretty ill thought out.

Tv has one other advantage and that is the fact that the average life of a TV is around 8-10 years........for radios, its double this!

Hence, we have been going digital for 10+ years now on the Tv services and the transition has been relatively smooth thanks to the short(ish) life of the average set.