[ NNSquad ] Re: NAB is serious about mandating FM radios in every cell phone

[trotter <m.nuttall@ukonline.co.uk>]

Lo,

At 17:49 29/08/2010, you wrote:
> Not too long ago, governments all throughout Europe made big money 
> out of licensing 3G wavelength slots to mobile operators. So I think 
> the drive to reclaim public wavelengths has been the possibility to 
> license wavelength slots to private operators. But the telco 
> business has been down, and thus a new wavelength auction would not 
> be as successful now as it was before, and thus, I'm guessing that 
> the thrive to push for DAB or DVB-T has also diminished.
>
> Once a political decision sets a date to this, it will happen, 
> regardless on how many car-radios have been sold. In fact, the 
> number of existing legacy equipments was my argument for not 
> believing this would happen some day, back in 2000.


The driving force behind DAB radio in the UK has been the BBC which 
has the attitude of
"we know best so lump it" Even when their claims of superior sound 
quality have been
technically ridiculed they shockingly put their fingers in their ears 
and shout no we know
better. For a corporation that claims neutrality to blatantly lie 
about the technical aspects
of DAB radio casts a long shadow over the BBC.

The BBC have made several poor decisions with DAB radio the biggest was to use
the 1980s MPEG 2 (musicam) technology that is even more inferior than 
the lowest
common denominator in media players instead of DAB+ which is the AAC codec.

Unfortunately the politicians being old and technologically naive 
have just gone
along with what the BBC have told them.

Thankfully the 2015 deadline was loose and had various conditions 
attached to it.
Now with the Conservatives in power the deadline is fuzzy at best.

> Furthermore, it's just my imagination, or do you also think the 
> industry would be extremely happy to comply with a mandatory upgrade 
> in TV and radio systems (both fixed and mobile)? (not so much the 
> consumers, though, who would end up picking the tab...)

Yes thats true but with DAB radio only present in the UK there has 
been few developments
in the technology because there are just not enough sales to be had 
from one market
that is performing poorly. The major manufacturers are not the 
leaders in DAB radio production.
Instead its one sector companies like Pure that dominate it.


> I'm not saying I agree with it, my father was a hobbyist and a CB 
> operator, and I think the use of determined ranges of radio 
> frequencies which have been public domain for so long, that its this 
> is now an acquired right. And we have uncountable reports of use of 
> such frequencies for purposes of fight against totalitarism (we may 
> also have reports of use of such public means to disseminate 
> terrorist or fundamentalist ideals).
>
> Despite my opinion, and all things weighted, I believe that the only 
> argument able to stop these decisions would be a technological one, 
> that is, if no standard could be found or it could be proved that 
> the new system does not bring any advantages over the legacy one. 
> And even so, political need to control contents would still be a 
> major drive for carrying on with this line of action.

With DAB being a poor choice there is very little advantage over FM 
and plenty of
disadvantages like DAB radios consuming up to 10 times the power that a FM
radio takes. They eat batteries for breakfast.

For TV the switch over is already happening in the UK but radio I 
very much doubt it will
happen for several decades now thankfully.

interesting perspective from you Nuno
thanks for your time,

Martin N

Running MorphOS v2.4 on Mac Mini, Moderator of 
MiniDisc,amithlonopen,bwfc Yahoogroups