
Analogue radio in the UK given 10-year stay of execution - open-source-ux
https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/03/analogue_commercial_radio_licences_extended_10_years/
======
hyakosm
DAB is useless because : FM audio quality is enough (actually the bottleneck
is the digital compression used in radio studios) ; the FM spectrum isn't
saturated ; FM receivers are simple and cheap, it would be absurd to force
people to buy new receivers and trash their fully functional radios. An
important part of FM listening is in cars, and a lot of cars have custom
proprietary radio trays or proprietery interfaces for hand commands buttons.
Signal degradation is progressive in FM, but very irritating in DAB.

~~~
toyg
_> FM audio quality is enough_

I really disagree there. The difference in quality between FM and DAB (not
even DAB+) is very significant, and I’m not even an audiophile.

The problem is that 1) you don’t know it until you actually make the switch,
and it’s not like you can borrow a car stereo system for a week to try it out,
and 2) that’s pretty much the only advantage of DAB, from consumers’
perspective, so the price/value proposition is not good enough to make it a
no-brainer purchase.

~~~
dtgriscom
> you don’t know it until you actually make the switch

A perhaps philosophical question: if you have to train yourself to be able to
perceive the higher-quality audio, do you end up enjoying the audio more, or
are you just training yourself to dislike the lower-quality audio?

~~~
raverbashing
The first one

It's similar to listening to a song over good headphones instead of crappy
notebook speakers for example

You start hearing all the details that were added to the sound.

It's like seeing a movie on the cinema rather than in a small TV for example

~~~
zepolen
Right but it's only when going _back_ to the lower quality version where you
realize just how much is missing. So it's the second.

Regular display pixels only became annoying after using a Retina display for a
while and then going back. They were fine before.

~~~
nicoburns
I disagree with this. I bought decent speakers (they were £300, so good
quality but nothing crazy), and I suddenly started enjoying songs that I
couldn't understand why anyone liked before, because I could hear details in
parts of the music where there were none before.

~~~
zepolen
Got an example of such a song?

~~~
b1c837696ba28b
Sure, a whole record:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Judges_Ruth](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Judges_Ruth)

C.f. any other record with good dynamic range and interesting stuff below
80Hz.

~~~
beenBoutIT
This phenomena you've described could be part of why Lovett's so
misunderstood.

------
est31
One issue I have with DAB and the like is their short-livedness. FM and AM
radio was figured out almost 100 years ago, while for DAB there are already
discussions of replacing it with 5G. So buying a DAB receiver is much more
likely to turn out to be an investment for something that you will have to re-
buy every 5 years as the technology is progressing.

~~~
lb1lf
-Indeed. Norway adopted DAB early - test broadcasts started sometime in the late nineties - but a couple of years ago when the majority of the FM broadcast towers were switched off, the DAB encoding scheme also changed from DAB to DAB+, rendering most receivers sold as future-proof radios useless.

I'd bought a number of DAB radios, only to be told I had to buy them once
again - but this time, they'd got it right, no worries!

(That being said, I believe transitioning to DAB+ made sense - sound quality
is significantly better - however, from a consumer perspective, it is
terrible. First have your FM radios obsoleted, then the first-generation DAB
radios - and the only thing in it for you as a consumer is to keep the same
service you've had all along...

(The main benefit of DAB being that it is significantly cheaper to run the
broadcast network, compared to FM.)

~~~
throw0101a
> _I 'd bought a number of DAB radios, only to be told I had to buy them once
> again - but this time, they'd got it right, no worries!_

I purchased a number of AM radios, only to be told I had to buy them once
again when FM came out—but this time, they'd got it right, no worries!

Welcome to technological development. :)

~~~
Sanzig
AM and FM broadcast radio are licensed in seperate spectrum in most of the
world (AM on the medium wave band, FM in VHF). Broadcast FM didn't replace AM
radio outright, and there are still loads of AM stations. In some very rural
areas in North America, it's the only broadcast radio you can receive. There
was also a significantly longer gap between the instruction of broadcast AM
and FM and the gap between DAB and DAB+.

------
Animats
Keeping AM broadcast radio around is useful for emergencies. The range is long
and the receivers are simple and widely available. One transmitter can reach
all of the UK. Besides, the 1MHz "medium wave" band is not very useful for
anything else.

~~~
mianos
This assumes everyone has an AM radio. I don't have one in this household at
all. I have no reason whatsoever to own one. It's not much use having an
emergency transmitter when no-one has a receiver and even then, it's not
running all the time. AM is probably worse as you need squelch or to keep
transmitting a carrier to keep it quiet.

On the other hand most people have the facility to receive an SMS and most of
them have their phone on. The only issue is lack of power to charge a phone.
Worse than keeping an AM radio running but in the past people turned on their
AM radio at certain pre-organised times of day anyway so there is not really
order of magnitude difference between a phone and an AM radio.

~~~
franga2000
Disasters (natural or otherwise) are usually fairly localised. Cell towers
have a reach of a couple km at best and can be easily overwhelmed, whereas AM
radio can reach upwards of 100km at night from a single transmitter and
doesn't care at all how many people are listening.

As you already mentioned, power is another issue, as a modern smartphone won't
last past a few weeks, even when turning on for only 5 minutes once a day,
whereas I've seen AM radios that can run continuously for at least that long.

Finally, my main concern: cell phones are complicated. An EMP (or flood) could
fry all your electronics and you're basically screwed, but finding someone who
can build a passable AM receiver (or even transmitter) out of various
electronic junk isn't all that difficult.

~~~
cnorthwood
There was an issue with flooding in Lancaster (a mid-sized English city) which
had this exact issue. The report is a fairly interesting read:
[https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-
university/conte...](https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/media/lancaster-
university/content-
assets/documents/engineering/RAEngLivingwithoutelectricity.pdf)

------
xioxox
That's a relief considering how bad DAB is. Most stations in the UK are stuck
on DAB rather than DAB+, which means poor MP2 codec quality. Then they've gone
for more identikit stations rather than higher bitrates. There's very little
above 128 kbps and I believe they use mono for some. Then you have the
problems with signal dropout, where the sound doesn't degrade gracefully in
poor signal areas. Poor battery life is also an issue. If it wasn't the sunk
costs of people buying these receivers and the loss of face after all the
years of propaganda by the authorities pushing the standard, it would have
been dropped.

------
corty
It should be a warning to the world how Germany botched DAB:

They introduced DAB among the broadcasters as a cost saving measure. DAB needs
smaller transmission power due to the digital transmission and error
correction, so they could get away with far smaller transmitter power (factor
10) than for the same area coverage in FM. But they misestimated the power
reduction, reduced too much and now area coverage is far worse than FM even in
areas that should nominally be covered.

Also, they first introduced DAB. Some people bought new equipment. Then, a few
years later, they introduced DAB+ in a complete switchover, no more DAB
stations. Thus everyone had to throw away their new expensive radios.

Therefore no-one trusts the coverage and longevity of digital radio, so no-one
buys it anymore.

Oh, and even nominal coverage isn't anywhere near where FM is after two
decades.

------
timsneath
It seems hard to imagine that DAB-based radio services won't themselves be
completely obsolete in another decade, given the ever-growing pervasiveness of
Internet access through cell and satellite. I wouldn't be surprised if DAB was
the first to shut down, with a reduced analog service remaining as a backstop
for the few that need a broadcast solution and for national emergency
scenarios.

~~~
stormdennis
I don't have a DAB radio and I don't know anyone who has one. These days, even
in the car my phone is my radio.

~~~
chrisseaton
I’ve got four DAB radios around my house. What do you use instead? Always your
phone? I find the one-touch interface to turn the radio on or off as I go past
valuable. I guess I wouldn’t mind if they were really using the internet
though.

~~~
brnt
I just don't have noise on all the time.

~~~
chrisseaton
If you don't listen to the radio much why are you in a thread about radio?

~~~
brnt
Why would I only visit threads on things I use much?

~~~
chrisseaton
This is like joining a thread about which fishing rod to use and saying 'none
of this matters - I don't fish'. Or joining a thread about books and saying 'I
just don't read'. It doesn't contribute anything useful to anyone. It's just
noise. See?

~~~
brnt
I wrote I don't need noise all the time. I didn't say I never listen to the
radio.

If you prefer to have no discussion, why visit a discussion board?

------
lifeisstillgood
My question is what is the spectrum that is freed up by this going to be used
for? And will it make money?

It is an awful lot of spectrum - and laws of supply and demand will start to
kick in.

Adding in a new range for WiFi is _nice_ but that will take international
agreement and frankly no one has charged me for wi-fi spectrum yet and it's it
likely to succeed if they try. Scientific applications like back hauling
hardly seem profitable.

Maybe adding in a new cellphone range will work - but AM and FM take up what
100khz to 1Ghz range? what's going in there ? I am fascinated. Is it really
all aiming at 6G?

~~~
corty
Low frequency spectrum will never go to wifi. Big telcos will see to that,
they want it for themselves and also don't want competition by the general
populace. So wifi gets progressively shorter-range high frequencies, while the
old broadcasting bands are given to telcos

~~~
CamperBob2
The spectrum in question would be terrible for WiFi for technical reasons
alone. It's too narrow and the required antennas would be too big.

------
gardaani
Norway plans to switch entirely from FM to DAB by 2022. Here's an article
discussing how it has gone so far: [https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and-
views/norways-fm-shut...](https://www.radioworld.com/columns-and-
views/norways-fm-shutdown-six-months-later)

~~~
alephnil
All national radio stations have exclusively used DAB since late 2017, and
while there remains a few holdout local radio stations on FM, I would consider
the transition finished.

~~~
jalla
And now fewer people are listening to radio than ever before.

------
Mountain_Skies
Shutting down analog tv in favor of digital freed up a huge amount of spectrum
but aren't the FM and AM commercial radio bands pretty tiny in comparison? Not
sure what's the motivation for trying to shut it down especially given the
simplicity of the system which would be much more useful in an emergency
situation.

~~~
nikanj
Being able to pull HD radio (
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Radio](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Radio)
) from the side band to the center stage would allow for a massive explosion
in radio channels and/or sound quality.

FM is simple enough, but not so simple that people could just jury-rig a
receiver/transmitter together in an emergency situation. If you need a store-
bought receiver, you might as well have a receiver that's not using tech from
1930s.

~~~
dylan604
In most emergency situation, a receiver is enough just so you can receive
information/updates. Transmitting definitely adds a larger layer of
complexity. An analog radio receiver is definitely something a lot of people
could jury-rigged, as it is a common science experiment for young school kids.

------
stormdennis
I prefer to refer to MW and LW rather than AM because so many AM receivers
don't cover Long wave band and that happens to have the only station I care
about, BBC R4. It's not a problem any more with internet radio but you can
pick up R4 on 1500m from the Droitwich transmitter right across Europe.

~~~
menybuvico
This. I've got plenty of devices capable of tuning into the (mostly dead) MW
band, but only a single one capable of receiving LW broadcasts.

------
stormdennis
_Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It follows that the Cabinet
minister with responsibility for DCMS is the Minister of Fun_

I love British humour

~~~
UncleSlacky
There's also (from the series "W1A"): "The Department of Culture, Media, and
also Sport"

------
rwmj
I cannot receive DAB in my house because of the thick walls, so when the
switch-off happens that'll be the end of listening to radio over the air for
me. Also for technical reasons DAB is terrible for music:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27w3quNTP84](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27w3quNTP84)

------
tzs
I could see the point of digital radio back when they started switching to it,
if they had put some rules in place to assure decent quality instead of
allowing stations to opt for cramming in more streams by using ridiculously
low bit rates. See the video from rwmj's comment [1].

But now? I don't see the point even if the streams were good quality.

When they started development, cell phones were expensive and not widely used.
By the time they deployed, cell phones were much more common, but were mostly
just voice and text.

But now they are widely deployed, and usually include internet. They also
usually include WiFi and in cities public WiFi is widely available.

It seems more efficient, then, to not have a separate digital radio service
and instead just serve digital radio streams over internet.

Then there is no need for people on the go to buy dedicated hardware for
listening to radio. They've already got what they need with their phone.

People listening at home might prefer to listen on their A/V receiver than on
their computer, but modern A/V receivers have Ethernet and/or WiFi and know
how to stream, so again internet streaming can serve the needs that would have
been served by digital radio. (And if they don't, it is almost certain that
something else hooked up to your A/V systems, such as a Roku or a Fire Stick
or a Blu-ray or a cable set top box or a TV has an internet radio app).

Keep analog radio. It doesn't use a lot of bandwidth [2], and you can make
really cheap receivers that run for a very long time on batteries or hand
cranks and do not require configuration or buying a service. It makes a good
backup to have for emergencies.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23739360](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23739360)

[2] This may vary from country to country, but I think generally the AM band
is about 1 MHz wide and FM about 20 MHz wide. In TV terms, that's about 1/6th
the bandwidth of a single color TV channel for all of AM, and a tad under 3.5
color TV channels of bandwidth for all of FM.

------
jbj
My experience in Continental Europe with DAB is that when you receive the
signal it is fine, but when the signal is flaky it is useless. For FM signals,
the quality drop at bad reception is much more linear, and not a binary type
of reception where it drops, but rather just gets grainy.

Since internet coverage is so wide, I can always receive digital radio online,
should I wish to.

In the case I am somewhere with bad data reception, I would probably preffer
FM.

------
mtaksrud
I’ll just leave this from 2015 here [https://www.techradar.com/news/car-
tech/why-dab-radio-in-the...](https://www.techradar.com/news/car-tech/why-dab-
radio-in-the-uk-is-broken-and-how-to-fix-it-1217586)

------
betamaxthetape
YouTuber Techmoan covered the issues with the UK's implementation of DAB /
DAB+ back in 2019:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27w3quNTP84](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27w3quNTP84)

------
sorokod
Can someone comment on the economic forces in play here? The article mentions
the "potentially lucrative FM and AM spectrum", but has no further details.

------
MintelIE
Digital radio just can't compete. Not only are the players generally large and
battery hungry, everybody will be expected to buy a new receiver. It's a
terrible shame and they might as well just switch to the Internet.

~~~
dungdang
radio is mostly used by people in cars. all cars, at least stateside, have had
digital radio for eons. i don't even think there's a used car you can buy that
still runs, that doesn't do digital. for a car, a digital radio is not battery
hungry -it's power requirement doesn't even count.

people don't buy standalone radio receivers, and haven't in decades.

~~~
reaperducer
_all cars, at least stateside, have had digital radio for eons_

My car is a 2015. My wife's car is 2016. Neither have digital radio, much to
my disappointment.

 _people don 't buy standalone radio receivers, and haven't in decades_

Except that they do, which is why they're still available in stores. I bought
one at Target just last fall for a relative who was in the hospital for an
extended stay.

~~~
kawsper
You can buy a cheap bluetooth dongle that transmits on the FM-band that your
car can pick up, you can then pair the bluetooth dongle with your phone and
have your phone play through your car speakers.

That's a nice inexpensive upgrade, and can be an alternative to having a
digital radio installed.

~~~
reaperducer
_You can buy a cheap bluetooth dongle that transmits on the FM-band_

No need to. The car has Bluetooth. It also has a USB port, an aux port, and an
SD Card slot for playing music. It just doesn't have digital radio.

