Trev 279 Kozamernik

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    EBU Technical Review - Spring 1999 2F. Kozamernik

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    what the incremental value of a new car, fitted with a DA Breceiver, w ill be;

    wh at the spectrum savings wou ld be in the long term, du eto the m igration ofFM to DA B.

    Of course, DA B is not the only pipe that can convey digital

    radio p rogramm es to the listener. It is but on e piece in a largejigsaw of p oten tial FM-substitute or competitor systems.Other technologies that will allow us to access digital radioinclude: the Internet; various DVB channels (satellite, cable,terrestrial); d ifferent storage d evices; DRM ; World Space; AD R,etc. This being said, the Eureka-147 DAB system is probablythe strongest candidate to carry future digital radio services.In 1999, it can safely be said that there is no serious alternativesystem to Eureka-147 for delivering digital rad io terrestriallyacross Europe particularly in the mobile environment wheremuch radio listening takes place.

    While DA B satisfies all the requirements of public and com-mercial broadcasters in terms of aud io qu ality, service per-forman ce, spectrum efficiency, network costs, operationalflexibility, scalability, interoperability and future extensibility we must nurture it, if it is to succeed in the marketplace.The interest in DA B, as well as the economic, cultural and reg-ulatory circumstances surrounding it, vary considerably fromcoun try to country. The introduction ofDA B thus requires aconcerted and synchronized action by all its major players, atboth the national and international levels.

    Investments in DAB

    The econom ic aspects of the introd uction of new DA B technol-ogy have so far been rather n eglected an d, ind eed, und eresti-ma te d . Bu t th e fact is th at th e p u b lic b ro ad ca sters a n dmanufacturers in Europe have invested significant money inthe making ofDA B and, fortunately, the point of no returnhas been reached; otherwise, these investments would have

    been lost.

    Sceptics will say that the current DA B coverage in Europe isstill patchy. The current and/ or near-future DA B coverage inthree major European countries is shown in Fig. 1. In reality,the population penetration of DA B in different Europeancountr ies has reached a significant prop ortion of the total pop -ulation in less than four years. Table 1 (on the next page)shows the projected coverage of DA B in certain Europeancountries, by the end of 1999. By then, more than 180 millionpeople will be within reach of DA B in Western Europe alone.Experimental DA B services are also being conducted in Aus-tria, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and other countries.

    Figure 1Current/near-future DAB

    coverage in France,Germany and the UK.

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    The coverage of any new ter-restrial broadcasting serviceinevitably grows slowly buts te ad ily, a s th e tran smitterinfrastructure is developed and terrestrial DA B coverageis no exception. The key issue

    h er e is t he la ck of m o ney.Investments in the infrastruc-ture have to be funded fromthe normal annual budget ofb roa d ca st in g s ta tion s. Inord er to m inim ize th eseinvestments, the strategy is touse existing transmitter siteswhere possible.

    It has been estimated by Prog-

    nos [11] that some five hun-d red m illion Eu ro (500m)have been spent over the last12 years on DA B:

    some 250m h a ve b eenin v es te d a t th e n a tio na l

    Country Percentage ofpopulation

    Approx. number of people

    (in millions)

    Belgium 80% 8.16

    Denmark 25% 1.30

    Germany 50% 40.80

    Finland 20% 1.02

    France 43% 25.00

    Italy 60% 34.38

    Netherlands 45% 6.97

    Norway 35% 1.54

    Portugal 20% 1.80

    Spain 25% 10.00

    Sweden 85% 7.48

    Switzerland 50% 3.50

    UK 70% 41.16

    TOTAL 183.11

    Table 1Projected DAB population coverage in various European coun-tries, by the end of 1999.

    Abbreviations

    ADR Astra Digital Radio

    AM Amplitude modulationCEPT European Conference of Postal and

    TelecommunicationsAdministrations

    DAB Digital Audio Broadcasting

    DRM Digital Radio Mondiale

    DVB Digital Video Broadcasting

    DVB-T DVB - Terrestrial

    DVD Digital video (versatile) disc

    EC European CommissionEPG Electronic programme guide

    FM Frequency modulation

    GPS Global positioning system

    GSM Global system for mobilecommunications

    HMI Human-machine interface

    IEC International ElectrotechnicalCommission

    ISDN Integrated services digital network

    ISO International Organization forStandardization

    ITS Intelligent transport system

    ITU International TelecommunicationUnion

    MOT Multimedia object transfer

    MPEG (ISO/IEC) Moving Picture ExpertsGroup

    OFDM Orthogonal frequency divisionmultiplex

    PDA Personal digital assistant

    TDMA Time-division multiple access

    TMC Traffic message channel

    TPEG Transport Protocol Experts Group

    UMTS Universal mobile telecommuni-caton system

    VHF Very high frequency

    VM Virtual machine

    WARC (ITU) World Administrative RadioConference

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    level (radio broadcasters, experiments, trials, network costs and national subsidies forthese activities);

    some 200m have been invested by equipm ent manu facturers, on radio receivers andtransmission network equipm ent (includ ing n ational su bsidies);

    Some 50m have been spent on supranational co-ordination and by professional bodies.

    However, it m ay w ell be that the real investments are much higher. In p articular, the esti-mates attributed to the manufacturers may be rather low, given that many did not respond tothe Prognos questionnaire. Futhermore, the m odernization of digital stud ios and produ ctionfacilities, archiving facilities and staffing costs have not been taken into account in these esti-mates.

    Digitalization affects both the rad io broadcasting and the retail markets. The former is con-fronted with ad ditional costs during a rather long period of simulcasting and un certain pros-pects of enhanced business services. The receiver m anufacturers and retailers, on th e otherhand , can expect a strong resurgence of consum er dem and for receiving equipm ent. Othersectors of the audio/ radio industry are also likely to flourish in this new business environ-ment. At the end of the day, the radio ind ustry should grow faster d ue to digitalization.

    A new business model

    Radio in Europe has tr aditionally been a conglomeration of individual comp anies, und er d if-ferent ow nership , meeting local needs. This pluralism, allied to th e prin ciple of free-to-airservices, has driven the growth of Radio in the past decade, particularly at the regional andlocal levels.

    In terrestrial broadcasting, the vertical structure of the industry that has served Radio well fordecad es is now being replaced by a horizontal valu e chain. A vertical stru cture, how ever, stillapp lies to the satellite and cable operators. In the horizontal value chain, several players mu stwork together harm oniously in order to pu t digital radio on the m ap. These players are as fol-lows (see Fig. 2):

    content p roviders (i.e. produ cers of radio p rogramm es, data and mu ltimed ia content);

    service providers (i.e. service packagers);

    mu ltiplex providers and transmission/ n etwork p roviders;

    InfrastructureProgrammeproduction

    Distributionpackaging

    Receptionequipment

    Consumption

    Transmissionequipment,development ofstandards,establishmentof networks

    Programmeproduction,radio services,data services

    Free-to-airservices,packagingof blocks,non-PADservices

    Maturity ofreceptionequipment,pricing policy

    Householdinvestmentbudgets,consumptionpreferences

    Figure 2

    Value chain of digital radio (courtesy of Prognos).

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    manufacturers.

    This structure, although asignificant change for Radio,nevertheless p resents majoropportunities. There are nomu ltinationals with largesharehold er finance willingto r isk capital in new tech-nology or to subsidize thereceivers. Instead, th is busi-ness model allows the radiosector to create new partn er-s hip s a cros s th e in d u s try,a n d lea d s to mu ch g re atercompetition in the internalm ar ket . It is th er efore ad y na m ic b u sin ess m o d el,

    with important implicationsfor European content provi-s io n, e mp lo yme n t a n d th elo n g-term v ia bility o f th eradio ind ustry.

    Currently there is a lack ofincentive for the commercials ector to migrate to DA B.Initially, DA B w ill not enablecomm ercial radio stations to

    have a wider reach: in fact,their coverage area may ini-tia lly d e crea se. Th is willautomatically increase theco m p et it ion b et w een t heco mmercia l p lay ers, wh om a y ev en h av e t o sh ar e amultiplex. It is also true tosay that the commercial sec-tor will have to be preparedto take the risk of having lit-

    tle retu rn o n th eir in v es t-ments over a short p eriod ofbroadcasting on DA B but,once they have acquired ah a rd co re o f listen ers, th epotential for financial gainwill be enormous. The fearo f ta kin g a ris k ma y s ee mdaunting to broadcasters butit will p rese nt a rea l ch a l-lenge and those who do notp lu n g e in to th e w a ter n owmay n ever learn to swim.

    * = study / development

    ** = prototype

    *** = pre-production

    **** = production, limited distribution

    ***** = production, internationally available

    Manufacturer Car Hi-Fi Portable PC Card Chips Module

    Aiwa *

    Alpine **

    Arcam ****

    AVI ****

    Bang & Olufsen **

    Becker **

    Blaupunkt *****

    Bosch ** ***** *****

    Clarion *****

    Connaught Elec. *

    Cymbol Electronics ****

    Daewoo

    Delphi Delco **

    Fraunhofer *

    Fujitsu Ten **

    Grundig ***** ** *****

    Hitachi ** *****

    JVC ***

    Kenwood ***** **

    Mannesmann

    (VDO)

    **

    Marantz *

    Meridian ****

    Mission ***

    Mitsubishi **

    Panasonic ***

    Philips *****

    Pioneer *****

    Radioscape ***

    Roberts *

    Roke Manor ****

    Sharp **

    Sony *** ***

    Tag McLaren Audio ***

    Teac **

    Technics ***

    TechnoTrend ****

    Temic *****

    Terratec ***

    Table 2Manufacturers of DAB equipment and components.

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    DAB receivers

    At the present stage of DA B roll-out, the biggest missing link is insufficient sales of DA Breceivers. There are several reasons for this:

    lack of consumer awareness and/ or interest;

    the distraction effect of oth er electronic prod ucts, e.g. mobile p hones, d igital TV, DVD , etc.;

    high initial prices for DA B receivers;

    less-than-un iversal coverage.

    DAB receivers are intended to become m ass-market p rodu cts. Already, a variety of consum erprod ucts is available in th e shops and more w ill come. Some examp les of consum er receiversare given in Fig. 3 (top of this page). While the m ajority of man ufacturers prod uce only carradios (for the moment using a separate add-on DA B box with a separate antenna), there arecurrently four manu facturers w ho are p rodu cing hi-fi DA B tuners for the home.

    On the p revious page, Table 2 (cour tesy ofWorld DA B) summ arizes the availability ofDA B con-

    sumer equipment in Europe 1. Two conclusions may be d rawn from this table:

    1. The WorldDAB Roll-out Support Programme (RSP) is currently in the process of collecting data from

    manufacturers, and this table may be revised in future as new data become available.

    Figure 3A selection of readily-available DAB radios for the car and the home.

    Grundig Data TerminalDAB-T 1002

    Cymbol DAB tuner

    Arcan DAB tuner

    Clarion DAB 9475

    Sony H11

    Blaupunkt Sydney RCM 128W

    Pioneer add-onDAB car kit

    Grundig DCR 1000 DAB

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    several man ufacturers are already involved in the p rodu ction of consum er DA B receivers,and a potentially larger num ber have plans to do so;

    there are several types ofDA B receivers already on th e mar ket and more w ill arrive soon,in particular portable and walkman-type receivers, as new generation of integrated cir-cuits begin to appear.

    Table 3 gives the retail prices(in DM ) of some receiversth at we re a va ila ble a t th etime of writing (May 1999).As DA B is no different fromo th er n ew co ns u mer p rod -ucts, it is expected that theprices of DA B receivers willcome down rapidly, and themarket will then grow stead-ily. Some p redictions for the

    growth ofDA B

    are given inFig. 4.

    It sh o u ld b e n o ted th at PCcards are now a very p opu larform of DA B receiver. Thesecards help many people whoalready own a PC to experi-ence DA B services (aud io anddata) before integrated DA Breceiverscometothemarket.

    It is important that the tech-n ica l a n d o p eratio na l fea -tures ofDA B receivers m atchthe features that are trans-mitted. World DA B has madeconsiderable effort in bring-ing together the broadcast-ers and manufacturers in order to agree on a minimum set of mandatory and optionalcharacteristics for the first-generation consum er receivers, and hence avoid intr odu cing a mis-match. On the next page, Table 4 shows th e pr incipal features of the DA B receivers now avail-able on the m arket. It should be noted that not all these features may be supp orted in the

    receiver itself; some may initially be implemented in a separate decoder, in which case aninterface is provided in the receiver. Some of these features will be implemented in second-generation receivers. There w ill be a wid e range of different levels of implementations, andcorrespond ingly d ifferent p rice levels.

    An important aspect of DA B is user-friendliness and simplicity of handling. DA B receiverstend to be highly sophisticated and complex, but attempts have been made by the H u MIDABProject [12] to simp lify considerably th e access to DA B services and their selection.

    Further effort should be made to include DA B as a standard feature in the car d ashboard aspart of the car telematic system. For example, a DA B receiver in the car could be combinedwith a GSM telephone and a GPS navigation system.

    Manufacturer Unit Type Price (DM)

    Blaupunkt D-Fire 01 Box 1990

    Clarion DAB 9475 R (DIN) 2200

    Grundig DCR 200 Box 1299

    Kenwood KTC-959 DAB Box 2999

    Pioneer GEX-O 900 DAB Box 1399

    Sony XT 100 DAB Box 2000

    Table 3

    The retail prices (in DM) of DAB receivers available at May 1999.

    Figure 4Predicted growth of DAB in Europe up until 2005.

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    The advent of software (or virtual) receivers may revolutionize receiver designs in the future.In the longer run , all futu re DA B receivers even the smallest walkman type may use con-

    ventional computer-processing chips, rather than dedicated DA B chip-sets. In addition, pow-erful computer memories will allow the local storage of thousands of internet-like pages,pictures, graphics, maps and other information. This will lead to an extremely flexible broad-casting system in w hich DA B will be used as a transparent d ata pipeline. Radio w ill no longerbe only an audio m edium, but a mu ltimedia m edium. Applications will be implemented insoftware, downloadable off-air by the receiver, and updateable and upgradeable on the fly.

    Technology

    A stable technology is an essential foundation on which the future of radio broadcastingshould be based. Eureka-147 DAB is certainly one such system. But it is no longer the only

    Table 4Principal DAB receiverfeatures.

    Transmission-provider-relatedfunctionalities

    Transmission modes

    Mode I

    Mode II

    Mode III

    Mode IV

    Service Access Technical

    TII / Regional coding

    Alternative services

    Service trigger

    FIC overflow

    Mux reconfiguration with no interrupt

    Content-provider-relatedfunctionalities

    Audio

    Audio 8 - 24 kbit/s

    Audio 32 - 256 kbit/s

    Audio 320 & 384 kbit/sHalf sampling rate

    Multi-channel sound

    Error concealment in the receiver

    Storage of 10*2*16 character blocks

    Storage of 10 min. audio

    National Features

    Language

    Country Identifier

    Time and Date (UTC)

    Local Time Offset (LTO)

    Receiver Display Related

    2 * 16 characters

    1/4 VGA

    Labels

    National Character Sets

    Programme Type - Selection Mode

    International set

    Full coarse set

    Download

    Fine codes

    Programme Type - Watch-Mode

    International set

    Full coarse set

    DownloadFine codes

    Programme Type - Preview

    International set

    Full coarse set

    Download

    Fine codes

    Programme Type Downloading

    Announcements

    Alarm

    Programme delivery control

    Features

    X-PAD Applications

    X-PAD table of contents download

    Dynamic label segment

    Closed user group data:

    a:) Stream mode

    b:) Packet channel

    F-PAD Applications

    Dynamic range control

    Music/Speech switch

    Data-provider-relatedfunctionalities

    Other Data Services

    Paging

    TMC (Traffic Message Channel)

    Multimedia and hypertext

    Still pictures

    Conditional access

    Receiver Data Interface (RDI)

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    one. Many alternative technologies have emerged in recent years, with d ifferent ad vantagesand disadvantages. For a pu blic broadcaster, it is imp ortant to un derstand the pros and consof these different technologies and their commercial, economic and operational implications,so that sound decisions can be mad e. Broadcasters will always aim to u se the best p ossiblemeans to reach the audience in the most effective way.

    Apart from the EU-147 system, th e following digital technologies can readily be u sed for

    sound broadcasting in Europe:

    DVB;

    the Internet;

    satellite (AD R, World Space).

    In the future, the Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM ) system w ill also be available.

    It may be interesting to note that the Eureka system has been vastly improved in terms of itsmu ltimed ia app lications in last tw o or three years; its comp etitive edge to deliver mu ltimed iaapp lications has been considerably sharp ened. How ever, in ord er to make DA B happen now

    and not d elay its introduction, it is imp ortant to arrest any further imp rovements to the exist-ing stand ard. It is n ecessary to freeze all th e characteristics of th e sp ecification, imp lementthem in DA B receivers in their present state and bring the system to the market as soon as pos-sible. Module 1 of the World DAB Forum has suggested that the DA B standard should not beimproved for at least two to th ree years. During this time, stud ies should continue with aview to developing: (i) backwards-compatible refinements, as appropriate; (ii) a full-softwarevirtual receiver, and (iii) further m ultimedia ap plications th at th e mar ket w ill require. Inthis w ay, mu ltiple receiver generations w ill be avoided . Su ch a highly-sophisticated receivercould be ready by no later than 2002.

    Some refinements are already underway in the Eureka-147 Consortium to integrate the DA B

    system with other technologies, such as the Internet, mobile telephony (GSM, UMTS) and GPS.DAB mu st become interoperable w ith other technologies and not remain an isolated technol-ogy island. Efforts should continue to oversee a convergence between the two key new broad-casting technologies: DVB an d DA B. An interesting furth er developm ent w ill be to provide foran app ropriate return channel in order to allow future interactive app lications (e.g. pu rchas-ing, transactions, voting, etc). Some ad ditional work will be cond ucted on the conditionalaccess and the transactional mod els used with these developm ents.

    Multimedia Object Transfer Protocol (MOT)

    Using MO T in DA B, it is possible to implement a wide range of different multimedia userapp lications. These app lications w ill no d oubt boost the attractiveness ofDA B from the begin-ning of the comm ercial phase. The p rincipal MO T user applications are:

    asynchronous slide show ;

    timed slide show;

    broadcast website;

    traffic inform ation slide show :

    interactive new s service;

    video clips;

    differential GPS service.

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    Virtual machine (VM)

    In order to realize the data-service app lications ind ependently from th e native p rogramm ingenvironment of the hardware platform, a Virtual Machine (VM) for executing the app lica-tions will be specified. A new ap plication could be broadcast and execut ed by the d ata term i-nal after reception of the VM. Expected services u sing VM are:

    electronic programm e gu ides (EPGs);

    d ynam ic content (e.g. stock exchan ge, slide show s via the broad caster s w ebsite);

    new progr am me presentat ions (e.g. service label, etc.);

    intelligent tra nspor t services (such as t raffic inform ation, dep artu re times, etc.);

    new hu man -machine interface (H MI) solutions;

    advertising;

    games;

    software updates (e.g. new audio decoder schemes).

    Software receiver

    RadioScape (UK) has implemented in software th e entire DA B chain, on both the transmissionand receiver sides. On th e receiver sid e, the softw are covers all the signal processing, chan neldecoding and source decoding required of a DA B receiver. RadioScape has built u p a largedatabase of digital signal processing (DSP) libraries, routines and metrics. The code is firstimplemented as a mathematical model, which is transferred into C++ and finally into archi-tecture-specific code.

    Transport Protocol Experts Group (TPEG)

    Now recognized as a very robust delivery system with increasing coverage and availabilityacross Europe DA B is likely to become a major carrier of traffic, travel, tourism and telemat-ics services in the future [13]. The European m arket forecast for ad vanced traveller informa-tion services, such as in-car navigation and traffic information, is estimated at 26bn per

    annum . To this end, DA B-based ITS services are being promoted extensively by ERTICO 2 an d

    will be instrumental in the creation of the DIAMOND 3 project, to be co-funded by the 5th

    Framew ork of t he Eur opean Unions Informa tion Society Techno logies (IST) programme.

    Traffic information is at p resent b eing conveyed to th e general p ublic by using RDS-TMC (Traf-fic Message Chann el). Many EBU broadcasters have d eveloped an infrastructure to broad castit, m any road traffic d ata centres have been established an d som e TMC decoders are starting toapp ear on the m arket. In order to protect all these investments, the DA B system has recentlybeen ad justed to be able to carry TMC . Later, it will be able to carry efficiently the entirely newprotocol denoted TPEG. During a certain transition p eriod, both TMC an d TPEG w ill be car-ried in parallel by DA B.

    2. Intelligent Transport Systems Europehttp://www.ertico.com

    3. Delivery of ITS Applications with Multimedia Over Networks using DAB.

    http://www.ertico.com/http://www.ertico.com/
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    TPEG is a new p rotocol for traffic and travel information, for use in th e mu ltimed ia broadcast-ing environment [14], and is being developed by EBU Project Group B/ TPEG. It is a byte-ori-ented stream format which may be carried on almost any digital bearer with an appropriateadap tation layer. An ad aptation layer for DA B is und er development. The BBC performed adem onstration ofTPEG to World DAB Module 1 in London du ring March 1999.

    The TPEG Road Traffic Message application supports a wide range of receiver types, fromsophisticated agent receivers (to serve navigation systems), through to simple receivers onlyable to d ecode top-level information. Some of the possibilities includ e d igital m ap-basedreceivers, GPS receivers without digital m aps, and receivers without either GPS or digitalmap s. Road tr affic messages may be p resented to the u ser in many different w ays, includingtext, synthesized speech and graphically, or they may be used in route calculations.

    New emerging technologies

    Digital radio services will be available to the user through different digital delivery mecha-nisms. Some of those are now briefly described.

    Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM)

    Probably one of the most promising new technologies to carry sound radio services is DRM[15]. This technology is designed to comp lement and indeed replace analogue rad io servicesin today's AM bands below 30 MH z (i.e. long w ave, medium wave and short wave). Due tothe propagation conditions in these bands, the DRM system will be particularly suitable forinternational and national broadcasting. Digital technology is expected to imp rove signifi-cantly the audio quality and service ruggedness, compared with the present analogue serv-ices.

    The DRM system is being developed within the DRM Consortium . The aim is to agree on asingle world-wide system for Digital AM. At the time of writing, the DRM system specifica-tion has not yet been completed. However, an agreement has been reached to use a mu lti-carrier OFDM system, mu lti-level coding and mu lti-modes. Two system p roposals are cur-rently being considered: Thomcast an d Deutsche Telekom. The aud io coding is likely to bebased on the MPEG-4 [16] Advanced Audio Coding (AA C) scheme.

    The DRM system, when fully developed and tested in both the laboratory and the field, willbecome a useful comp lement to the DA B system which is used on VH F an d L-Band. Both sys-tems target different m arkets and both will be needed. The DRM system will require a newdigital receiver d esign. However, d ue to similarities w ith DA B, it should be possible todevelop a common DAB/ DRM receiver, should th e mar ket require it. Later, it m ay even beviable to develop common DAB/ DRM integrated circuits. The advantages from the u serpoint of view of such a comm on receiver/ chip are evident. The u ser does not mind aboutthe technology used; he/ she is only interested in the services received, and the cost. Indesigning the Service Information (SI) and data broadcasting features, it w ould be advanta-geous for DRM to use those already standard ized in DA B, as appropr iate. Similar or identicalSI wou ld simplify the p rodu ction of radio p rogramm es for DA B an d DRM , and w ould enhancethe interoperability of the two systems.

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    DVB-T as the radio carrier

    DVB-T is a new digital tele-vision broadcasting system[17], d e velo p ed fo r terres -trial broadcasting. Recentstu d ies h av e sh ow n th atDVB-T ca n b e u sed , u n d ercertain conditions, not justfor stationary and portablereception but also for mobilereception. Consequently,some broadcasters considerDVB-T as a p ossible carrier ofdigital radio services, thusavoid ing the n eed todevelop separate infrastruc-ture for DA B. Th e EBU Tech-

    nical Committee has agreed[18] that Radio is a specificmedium with its own char-acteristics and that it is vitalfor Rad io to be able todevelop its own digital plat-form and not be relegated asan add-on service withinother platforms. The conclu-sions that h ave been ad optedby th e EBU a re g iv en inPanel 1.

    Internet Radio

    The Internet is an increas-ingly popular means of con-veying aud io, in particular mu sic, to PC-equipp ed m embers of the general pu blic. Althoughinternet audio streaming is in its infancy, there are signs of big interest in it among publicbroad casters. Practically all EBU broadcasting organizations have their own website. In totalmore than 6000 stations are present on the Internet. Many (some 1000) are offering audiostreaming. However, at the m oment, this activity is not cheap. In Germany, the cost of a

    16 kbit/ s stream (i.e. per listener) is about 1.2 DM an hou r. Large broad casters are investingheavily in the Internet since they consider it a powerful m edium. For examp le, the BBCinvested more than 20m on its public-service internet activities during its 1998-99 financialyear.

    At th e p resent level of developm ent, a m ajor d rawback of Internet Radio is its relatively p oorand inconsistent sound quality, and the fact that only a very limited number of listeners, typi-

    cally n o m ore than 1000 to 2000, can listen to a given radio p rogramm e simultaneously 4. Th eInternet is not a mobile medium , which is an imp ortant issue as a lot of radio listening is d one

    4. Compared to the millions of simultaneous listeners on FM/AM, Internet Radio hardly deserves the termbroadcasting.

    Panel 1EBU statement on DAB and DVB

    DAB and DVBare tw o d ifferent, yet comp lementary, broadcasting systems

    that have been designed for different objectives and different markets. In

    many EBU mem ber countries, DABhas been imp lemented already on a pre-

    operational or regular operational basis, and DVB-T has already been intro-

    duced in a few countries with others expected to follow shortly.

    The EBU encourages its members to develop both DABand DVB-T systems

    to serve the radio and television communities, respectively. As the technol-

    ogy migrates from analogue to digital, the integrity of the radio medium

    should be preserved and the expectations of the radio listeners should be

    met.

    The assumption that DVB-T can replace DAB, and that DAB is no longer

    needed, is not correct and should not be p ursued by EBU mem bers. Radio

    is a mobile and portable medium , and the best technology for it is DAB.

    DVB-T can, technically, provide for mobile services, but few broadcasters

    will be able to implement a low p rogramm e-capacity variant of it, initially

    for the reasons of spectrum scarcity and economics. DVB-T w ill be able to

    carry radio services to stationary receivers (e.g. using TV set-top antennas),

    but this activity may represent only a minority market and is not a future-

    proof solution for the radio med ium.

    Both systems w ill be used for the d elivery of m obile broad cast interactive

    mu ltimed ia in the future. DAB will be used w here mobility is the prime re-

    quirement. DVB-T will be used w here large data capacity of the forward

    channel is required.

    Efforts should be mad e to bring the DAB and DVB technologies closer to-

    gether in term s of common system features, data protocols and service in-

    for mation (SI), in or der to facili tate pr oduction, distr ibution and

    broadcasting, using both technologies.

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    on the m ove. Several aud io comp ression schemes are used on the Internet; perhap s the mostpopu lar scheme is MPEG Layer III, now known as MP 3.

    In addition to audio streaming which allows for real-time listening to news and music at lowquality the aud io-on-demand business is flourishing. By th is means, a m usic track coded inMP 3 is downloaded via a PC and recorded on a small and light portable recorder called Dia-mond Rio PMP300 which contains a solid-state m emory chip. You can carry this d evice

    around with you, rather like a mini walkman.

    Synergy with GSM, UMTS

    The Un iversal Mobile Telecomm un ication Service (UMTS) is the third-generation mobile tele-comm un ications service. It is a successor to th e GSM system which already has 30 millionusers in over 100 countr ies. UMTS w ill offer new services to mobile users, such as high-speedinternet access, mobile video-ph ones and fast d ata file transfer to and from portable comp ut-ers and personal digital assistants (PDAs). These services will be enabled by a transmissioncapacity ranging from a basic rate of144 kbit/ s to primary rate ISDN at 2 Mbit/ s. In the early

    days ofUMTS, however, a capacity in excess of384 kbit/ s is unlikely.

    UMTS may have a signifi-ca n t imp a ct o n b ro ad ca sts erv ices . Fo r e xa mp le, itw ill be able to p rovid eworld-wide dial-in accessto radio and television serv-ices. The UMTS Forum seesgreat p otential for co-opera-t ion an d syn ergies w it h

    DA B, as shown in Panel 2.

    The EBU is in the process ofassessing the potential of theDAB/ UMTS sy ner gy form o bile m u lt im ed ia ser v-ices. An interesting possibil-ity would be to investigateth e co n ce p t o f co mbin edDAB/ UMTS user terminals.Th is m ay w ell p rov id e a

    means forUMTS

    to subsi-d iz e t he cost o f t he com -bined terminal which will already include a display, an H MI and audio/ video output, thusproviding an economy of scale.

    New attractive programmes

    DAB w ill help to increase the p rogram me choice significantly. As in d igital television, dig-ital is becoming a synonym for th ematic, specialized and niche p rogramm es. DAB will alsooffer trem end ous p ossibilities for creative people to explore new challenges in Rad io. Thereseem to be two paths of exploration: firstly, by adding a visual component to the primary

    Panel 2UMTS statement on DAB

    Co-operation with broadcasting companies could to some extent change the

    technical prerequisites for w ideband commun ications. Such co-operation

    could, for instance, include the use of high-power Digital Audio Broadcast-

    ing (DAB) transmitters as part of the overall UMTS service with the possi-

    bility of providing high-speed downlink data services in certain areas. This

    potential need for asymmetry in terms of high data-rates on the downlink

    has already been identified in other UMTS studies. Another possibilitywou ld be Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB), also called d igital TV, current -

    ly discussed in m any countries.

    A similar p ossible development is that m obile UMTSop erators could adop t

    the DAB technology for broadcasting-/ narrowcasting-type services, possi-

    bly even in the 800 MHz ban d. The realism of this development is difficult

    to assess at the present stage. How ever, in general there has been separation

    between the regulatory environments for broadcasting and mobile telecom-

    mu nications and there is therefore a n eed for interaction between the regu-

    latory regimes to be carefully considered. The regulation of broadcasting

    content should be kept separate from the regulation of transmission in order

    to enable such an interaction.

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    component which remains audio and, secondly, by providing new interactive forms of pro-gramm es. Content providers have often been criticized that they lack imagination in prod uc-ing new attractive radio programmes that would encourage people to subscribe to newservices, and to buy new DA B receivers. This should all change with the advent ofDA B.

    The World DAB Forum has recently decided to form a new Module 5 to bring together all crea-

    tive ideas onDA B

    programm ing, and it held its first workshop in Baden Baden, German y, on11 March 1999. Although some receivers will be sold on the basis ofDA Bs robust receptionand excellent sound quality, the most important and powerful sales tool will be the better con-tent and more imaginative programm es which will be broadcast on DA B. Many broadcastersand content providers are already carrying out experimental p roductions of m ultimediaapplications w hich are targeted at their particular m arkets. Module 5 intends to hold morewo rks ho p s in mid -1999, during which creative programming ideas will be exchangedamongst m embers of the World DAB Forum.

    Regulatory aspectsThe regulatory aspects ofDA B are perhaps the m ost important area but are also the most com-plex. Regulator y aspects are a m atter of national concern and , therefore, they n orm ally reflectthe n ational political, cultur al, econom ic and legal environm ent of a coun try. It is certain th atdigital radio needs some p olitical supp ort from national governm ents but it w ould be ad van-tageous to receive some guidance from the European institutions as well. Digital radio cannotroll out merely as commercial merchandise. Radio needs agreed and stable regulatoryarrangements in order to exploit fully th e opp ortunities of digital technology. These arrange-ments should be able to offer fair and equitable opportunities to all the players involved. Dis-parities betw een certain aspects of market entry, licensing and operating conditions between

    various countr ies, should be m inimized. Across Europ e there are some examples of valuableexperiences that can be shared and used as common best-practice recommendations.

    In the UK, the first commercial franchise for d igital radio w as aw arded last autu mn. Thelicensing p rocess for comm ercial radio in th e UK combines tw o typ es of licences: one for d ig-ital sound programm e services and one for the mu ltiplex. For the p urp ose of this statusoverview, this distinction is not made here since it does not affect the conclusions on aspectssuch as coverage and netw ork build-up.

    The basic policy of the UK Radio Authority is to invite applicants to submit proposals whichdetail the numbers and types of services, numbers of sites and transmitters, the bit-rate alloca-

    tions, roll-out plans, etc. When submitted, these proposals if accepted become part ofeither the man datory licence conditions (e.g. the nu mber of services) or the indicative provi-sions (such as the n etwork roll-out timetable beyond th e launch). In view of the infancy ofdigital radio, and allowing for new developments, the Radio Authority claims to be open toconsid er revisions of the ma nd atory conditions. The application fee for the national mu ltiplexw as 50,000 and the Radio Authority is charging an annual licence fee of10,000. By taking upbroadcasting licences on the national commercial multiplex, the existing three national com-mercial radio stations have received an automatic extension of their analogue licences for afurther eight years.

    As the multiplex is peculiar to digital broadcasting, one of the critical questions is how it isorganized and who is responsible for its operations. One p ossibility is that the m ultiplexoperator becomes a n ew licensed entity, as in th e UK comm ercial sector. Anoth er p ossibility is

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    applied in Italy where the multiplex operator will not be licensed; the licences will be onlygiven to content p roviders who will form a kind of multiplex consortium .

    Another regulatory m atter w hich has been th e subject of hot debate recently is the prop ortionof the mu ltiplex allowed to be allocated to non-aud io (data) ap plications. The current regula-tory arrangements in the UK allow 20% of the mu ltiplex to be used for n on-audio d ata ap pli-cations, but regulations in other coun tries may be d ifferent. Many countries encourage thebroadcasting of a variety of data app lications in order to m ake DA B different from FM, and toattract new audiences and data service providers to launch different business applications.

    The European Commission, in particular DG X, has been very supportive to the radio commu-nity and has organized two w orkshops. The m ost recent one titled Principles for the imp le-mentation of Digital Radio w as held on 5 March 1999 in Brussels and drew up the followingset of p rinciples:

    recognition of radios specificity;

    need for more frequencies;

    need for a co-ordinated switch-off strategy for FM radio;encouraging co-operation between public and private broadcasters;

    affordable prices for DA B receivers;

    need for a legal framework in European countries;

    more p olitical and institutional sup port.

    The European Commission has introduced digital radio in its 1999 Wor k Plan. The Commis-sion is planning to p repare a Comm unication to the European Parliament and the Council.The purpose of this Communication is to trace Radios forthcoming transition to digital, to

    identify p ossible barriers and recomm end possible ways of overcoming th em. Thanks to sig-nificant efforts carried out by the World DAB Forum, the Commission recognized that (a)Radio has its own cultural identity and is a particularly important issue for consideration, and(b) Radio will be addressed in a separate Communication, in a very distinguished manner.

    Frequency spectrum

    The lack of frequency spectrum available for DA B is perceived as a major barrier. The DA Bsystem is a terrestrial broadcasting system and it requires a dedicated spectrum range.

    Depending on the network scenario and the frequency band used, DA B is three to ten timesmor e spectru m -efficient than FM. Frequencies are available for th e startup ofDA B simulcastservices in parts of the VH F band and L-Band (i.e. from 176 to 230 MH z and from 1452 to 1467.5MH z).

    According to the international frequency plan established for CEPT countries at Wiesbaden in1995, each coun try h as obtained at least one frequency block (ensemble) for n ation-wid e cover-age. In man y cases, this provision is not su fficient to accomm odat e all the existing r ad io serv-ices which use analogue technology in the FM an d AM bands and thereby allow them tomigrate to digital. In p articular, there is a lack of frequencies available for small local rad iostations. This constitutes a significant barrier to bu siness developm ent. It is very imp ortantthat there is enough spectrum for both the public and commercial sector as the audience isoften different.

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    In December 1998, the European Commission published a Green Paper on spectrum issuesand invited interested parties to contribute their comments on whether the present politicaland legal base, as w ell as the practical implementation of Comm unity r adio spectrum policy,requires adaptation in the light of technological, market and regulatory developments.

    The World DAB Forum, in their response, emphasized that the spectrum resource, which isfinite, should be shared among different radiocommunication services in such a manner as tomaximize the p ublic benefits and interests. Sufficient spectrum should be allocated to thoseservices that offer the greatest good to the greatest num ber of people. Digital radio is such aservice: it will satisfy public interests in terms of p romoting cultural values for national,regional and local comm un ities, serving the sp ecific interests of minorities (largely ignored byother m edia), providing new s, information, edu cation, knowledge and entertainm ent. Digitalrad io w ill ensu re th e availability of free-to-air services to all citizens at all times.

    Although international co-ordination through the EC, ITU an d CEPT is needed, the ultimatedecision about all spectrum allocation issues should be left to the discretion of the administra-tions of the d ifferent states. They are best placed to d ecide on th eir spectru m n eeds in the lightof national circumstances, providing these principles comply with international market and

    competition objectives.

    Recently, economic efficiency and the cost of spectrum has been invoked in CEPT circles as apossible criterion for spectrum allocation. It is difficult to comp are d irectly telephone servicesand broad casting services. It may w ell be that, in some cases, the econom ic viability of ph oneservices m ay be greater. But the n ature of these personal (one-to-one) services is fund amen-tally different to broadcasting services w hich provide services to man y millions of people atall times.

    For World DA B, the public interest is in part secured by a mix of commercial and non-commer-cial players in the mark et. Beyond this, for the indu stry as a wh ole, w e see merit in DA B being

    jud ged ag ainst a set of criteria w hich va lu e th e econ om ic w or th of sp ectru m . These w ou ldinclude the creation of new services and employment, technological innovation and Europeancompetitiveness, production of consumer electronic products as well as economic growth.

    While spectrum auctioning may be suitable for telecom services, charging for the spectrumneeded to sustain existing broadcasting services or to develop new DA B services would behighly coun ter-prod uctive. It could stifle the introdu ction of new broadcasting technologies,such as DA B an d DVB.

    It is now essential that spectrum is mad e available for a broad im plementation ofDA B. Radioservices w hich are currently broadcast in analogue also n eed to be simulcast on DA B. Theseinclude the existing public and commercial AM an d FM broadcasters that are operatingnational, regional, local and comm un ity services. There must also be provision for satisfyingthe need for new radio programmes produced by both existing and new broadcasters wh ich cannot be accomm odated on AM or FM today, because of the lack of spare frequenciesin these bands. There mu st also be app ropriate allocations for new d ata and mu ltimed ia serv-ices. These are essential to stim ulate th e sale of new r eceivers and to create oppor tu nities fornew revenue streams for broadcasters.

    Switch-off time table

    It is recognized that it is difficult to set a date that is common to all European countries for theanalogu e switch off. H ow ever, it is necessary to elaborate a comm on strategy for a relatively

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    quick and smooth ap proach to digital radio implementation. An early announcement byadministrations about the timetable for ending simulcasting seems an essential measure tosupport the shift to digital technology, allowing a more efficient use of broadcasting spectrumin the longer term.

    Germany has set an example, having fixed the year 2003 for the pu blication of the timetable

    for the replacement ofFM

    by digital radio. The French R

    adioN

    umeriqueDA B

    believes thatthis date is well chosen and would allow the formulation of relevant decisions at the Euro-pean level.

    The concept of analogu e switch-off should be stud ied in d etail but it seems to be ben eficial foreverybody:

    Broadcasters would reduce the cost of transmission which is almost doubled due tosimulcasting;

    Provided that the majority of FM stations would be able to migrate to the DA B bands,administrations wou ld be able to use parts of the current FM band for other services;

    Customers an d users wou ld be encouraged to bu y new d igital radios (assum ing reasona-ble prices for DA B radios);

    Manufacturers would sell more DA B radios and the prices would come down further.Rather than combined FM/ DAB receivers, DA B-only receivers could be m anufactured,leading t o a furth er, albeit slight, redu ction in the cost of receivers.

    Suitability of L-band for DAB

    At WARC 92 in Torremolinos, Spain, the band 1452 to 1492 MH z (i.e. L-Band) was allocated todigital sound broadcasting (satellite and complementary terrestrial). This band can accommo-date 23 DAB blocks. How ever, in m any countries, parts of this band cannot be u sed before2007 due to its current use by other radiocommunication services, such as fixed point-to-pointservices. The low er p art of this band (i.e. nine blocks occupy ing abou t 13.5 MH z) was plannedby the 1995 CEPT Planning Meeting in Wiesbaden. There is already an initiative by CEPT toplan an additional seven blocks for terrestrial DA B services. The World DAB Fo ru m h a sexpressed its position that, due to the current shortage of spectrum used for local, commercialand commu nity services, all the available blocks in L-Band should be u sed for terrestrial DA B.It is pointless to reserve spectrum for future satellite DA B services since there is little or nocommercial interest in pan-European DA B services over the foreseeable futu re. It should bepointed out that, for large-area coverage using a Single Frequency Network (SFN), VH F is

    more appropriate than L-Band . The latter seems to be technically more suitable for sm all-cov-erage zones, e.g. for small local and community broadcasters.

    Suitability for small local broadcasters

    Commu nity broadcasters, operating small low-power FM or AM stations, are nu merous inma ny coun tries. They can be found in a variety of different localities and they serve d ifferentpu rposes; for examp le, a stu dent station covering a camp us, or a sm all station covering a vil-lage, etc. In m any countries, such sm all stations are becoming increasingly popu lar amon gcertain categories of listeners; they represent a low-cost solution to providing news and infor-mat ion of local interest.

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    It is important for these small broadcasters that they have the same opportunities to migrateto d igital radio as any other broadcaster. A fund amental requirement for them is that thesame DA B system is used for their transm issions and that the users are able to use commonly-available DA B receivers. How ever, it should be realized that commu nity radio stations havesome specific requirements, such as an independent location, small coverage area and lowinstallation costs.

    Although the Eureka-147 DAB system has been designed and optimized to carry a multiplex ofseveral radio services, it can in p rinciple carry on ly one stereophonic service. It wou ld be sen-sible, where geograp hically p ossible, to u se a d edicated ensem ble for a stereo service, w ith thehighest possible audio bit-rate (i.e. 384 kbit/ s) and protection level (1/ 3). This configurationwould allow high audio quality and low transmitter power, thus minimizing the installationcosts. It would also allow us to shap e the coverage of the mu ltiplex, as required by th e mar-ket. The remaining data capacity in the m ultiplex could be devoted to d ata or mu ltimediaservices as appropriate, and/ or shared with other national/ regional/ local services. In the lat-ter case, agreement should be reached about an acceptable coverage area, among all the serv-ice p roviders sharing the same m ultiplex.

    EBU Project Group B/ DAC has investigated the possibility of u sing DA B in a TDMA mode toallow for local opt-out services. The group fou nd that su ch a solution is probably technicallypossible (subject to the su ccessfu l resolut ion of transm itter filtering and synchronization in thereceiver) but would be operationally complex, w ith reduced coverage (mu sh areas) andreduced bit capacity. Therefore such a solution could not be recomm ended for DA B commu-nity services.

    As a trivial solution , these comm un ity services could remain on FM for a sufficiently long time(until the switch-off d eadline) or, if p art of the 87.5 - 108 MH z band continued to be availablefor broadcasting, they could stay there ind efinately.

    Current DAB services in major European countries

    In order to illustrate the situation concerning DA B in Europe, it may be instructive to giveexamp les of actual services and regulatory arrangements in three m ajor European coun tries;France, Germany an d the UK. How ever, it should be noted that th e situation is evolving rap -idly and this brief overview could rap idly become out of date.

    A comp lete up dated review ofDA B services world-wide is given at:

    http:/ / www.worlddab.org

    France

    Three multiplexes were licensed in the Paris region in 1996. Coverage there today reachesabout 10 million people who can receive 19 regular programmes. Further licences weregranted in October 1998 an d April 1999, for the cities of Lyon, Marseilles, Nantes and Toulouse(three m ultiplexes in each city). The mu ltiplexes that w ere licensed in October 1998 com-menced very shortly afterward s in N ovember 1998.

    Further DA B licences to be ann ounced in 1999 will cover another five major cities and 14med ium-size cities, and w ill provide for coverage along major highways. The num ber of peo-

    http://www.worlddab.org/http://www.worlddab.org/
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    ple reached by the end of1999 will be 25 million. The num ber of services provided w ill be 19in Paris, 17 in Lyon, 22 in Marseilles, 20 in Nantes and 20 in Toulouse.

    The projected DA B coverage in the Grenoble area is shown in Fig. 5.

    Germany

    One obstacle in rolling out DA B in Europe, and one often quoted by receiver manufacturers, isthe situation in Germany by far the biggest consum er electronics mar ket in Europe. Theposition ap pears to be u nclear because there is still no formal comm itment from German pu b-

    lic broadcasters to introduce DA B, and commercial broadcasters seem to be concerned by thelack of funds and frequencies. But in fact, the situation in Germany is very encouraging.

    In August 1998, the German Cabinet took imp ortant d ecisions on the m igration from analogueto digital broadcasting; it adopted DA B as the official stand ard for digital radio in Germ any. Ithas now set up a clear licensing process for DA B. In April 1999, Saxony Anhalt w as the firstGerman Lnd er to launch regular d igital rad io services; it laun ched its DA B services with aninitial coverage area of m ore than 95%. Then, on 10 May 1999, operational digital radio serv-ices started in Bavaria, German ys largest Lnd er. DAB frequencies hav e also been assignedto other Lnder, including Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia.

    Within five years there will be 90% DAB coverage of German y and the p lan is to increase thisfigure to 95% within eight years. In Bavaria, with 22 programme slots available to commercialbroad casters, the Bavarian m edia au thority received over 50 applications. In other Lnder, thedemand for digital transmission capacities has been similar broadcasters want to go digital.

    The projected DA B coverage in the Munich area is shown in Fig. 5.

    The United Kingdom

    BBC Digital Radio star ted in 1995 and had reached 60% of the population by the end of1998.Cur rently, BBC Digital Radio offers five national an d variou s regional an d local rad io services.Subject to approval, it hope to offer a further four services in the near future.

    Figure 5Projected DAB coverage in Grenoble, France,and Bavaria, Germany.

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    On 12 October 1998, the firstnational commercial DA Bmultiplex was licensed to theD igit al O ne con sor tiu m .Th ey w ill st ar t ser vices based on 69% pop ulation cov-erage in October 1999. Dig-

    ital One w ill offer tenprogrammes (three existingnational stations, and sevennew ones).

    Existing commercial radiostations that bid for a DA Bmu ltiplex channel were givena free eight-year extension oftheir existing FM licences.The UK Radio Authority has

    n ow st ar ted t h e licen sin gprocess for add itional (localand regional) mu ltiplexes att he r at e o f o n e p er m o nt h,and seven such licences areplanned to be awarded by theend of 1999 (Birmingham,Manchester, Greater London 1,Glasgow, South Yorkshire,Tyne & Wear and Cardiff/N ew p or t). Th e n u m ber of p eop le exp ected to berea ch ed b y th e en d o f 1999w ill be 39 m illion . Th enumber of services on-air bythe end of1999 will be around19 national, plus eight or nineregional/ local.

    The World DAB

    ForumThe World DAB For u m w a sestablished in October 1995 at the initiative of the EBU to become a major interna-tional facilitator of DA B. Itnow includes more than 100members worldw ide. It is acollective of private an d pu b-lic broadcasting organiza-tions, data content providers,manufacturers, network pro-

    European DAB CommitteeChairman: Michael Green (BBC)Vice-Chair: Sergio Natucci (AER)

    Adviser: Anna Zanotto

    Finance/Budget GroupChairman: Christian Maillard (RF)

    WorldDAB Project OfficeProject Director: Franc Kozamernik (EBU)

    Project Manager: Julie UnsworthAdmin. Supervisor: Lina Vanberghem (EBU)

    Special Projects Adviser: Andreas Maurer

    Project Office Assistant: Rebecca Dorta

    Module 1: Services & EquipmentChairman: Frans Westra (VDO CC)

    Vice-Chair: Kjell Engstroem (SR)Adviser: Wolfram Titze (Bosch)

    Module 2: Regulatory & Legal Matters

    Chairman: Goran Arvedahl (Teracom)Adviser: Gordon Harold

    Module 3: Marketing & PromotionChairman: Simon Spanswick (WRN)

    Vice-Chair: Michel Tremblay (DRRI/CBC)

    Module 4: Satellite ServicesChairman: Peter Senger (DW)

    Module 5: Programming & MultimediaChairman: Glyn Jones (BBC)

    TF2: Conditional AccessTF Leader: Lutz Franke (SDR)

    TF4: Value Added Data Services

    TF Leader: Glyn Jones (BBC)

    TF5: On-Air Predictions

    WorldDAB Informationand Registration Centre

    Coordinator: Bev Marks

    AH1: Satellite DAB SystemsChairman: (TBA)

    AH2: HEO/MEO/LEOChairman: Theodore Prosch (SDR)

    AH3: EU 147 TrialsChairman: Gerald Chouinard (DRRI/CBC)

    Steering BoardChairman: Michael McEwen (DRRI)

    General AssemblyPresident: Michael McEwen (DRRI)

    Vice-President: (TBA)

    Spectrum Lobbying CommitteeChairman: Percy Pettersson (Teracom)

    Adviser: Gordon Harold

    Roll-out Support programmeChairman: Andreas Maurer

    Adviser: Ruud Vader

    TF3: DAB FunctionalityTF Leader: Jorgen Samsioe (Teracom)

    TF6: Traffic & Travel InformationTF Leader: Kjell Engstroem (SR)

    Figure 6Organigram of the World DAB Forum.

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    viders, regulators, research institutes and other organizations, w ith a common interest indev eloping Digital Audio Broad casting (DA B) services and introdu cing them on the consum ermarket. The Forum is dedicated to encouraging international co-operation in Radio, and tomaking DA B a world-wide commercial marketing success to the lasting economic and socialbenefit of all concerned. The organigram of the World DAB Forum is shown in Fig. 6.

    The Forum will continue to strive to make the private and public sectors work together in con-jun ction w ith th e p olicy m ak er s. Generally, t he in d u stry feels th at th e regu lato ry fram ew or kis acceptable, and the leadership of the pu blic sector is seen as p ositive. How ever, the p ublicbroadcasters must take on the challenge of involving the private broadcasters in DA B. Th eexamp le of Digital One in th e UK, which will start its commercial services in October 1999, isvery encouraging.

    It is probably tru e to say that th e international consensus p rocess, wh ich was op ted for in thecase ofDA B, has been very long, perhap s even too long. By way of comp arison, the DVB proc-ess was significantly shorter. But any su ch process wh ose objective is to agree a new broad-casting standard is, by its nature, very complex since it involves many parties, e.g. public andcommercial broadcasters, content providers, receiver, transmitter and IC manu facturers, net-

    work providers, regulators, research institutes and m any others. It takes time to agree on acomm on ap proach. The author strongly believes, however, that such a process is, in the longrun , the only w ay to achieve a stable, futu re-proof, internationally-agreed and market-drivenstandard.

    Conclusions

    There is a general consensus among broadcasters that the Eureka-147 technology is th e rightchoice for d igital radio. We know that it w orks well and w e are convinced th at there are tre-mend ous potential programm ing and business opp ortunities offered by DA B. Toda y, w e havea good idea of wh ere these opp ortunities lie, but on e thing th at is certain is that d ifferent m ar-kets w ill d evelop very d iverse applications. The more imaginative they are, the better thebusiness return for the broadcaster.

    What really matters now is to p ut DA B technology on to the consumer market, and to allowthose who have invested huge amounts in the infrastructure to get back a return on theirinvestments as soon as possible. Those who are involved in the produ ction of rad io pro-gramm es and d ata services should regard DA B as a potential source of large revenue.

    With th e m arket forces starting to d evelop, the w hole process is now un stoppable.

    The EU-147 system is future-proof. Futu re DA B receivers, including the smallest w alkmantyp e, ma y use comp ut er processing chip s and m emor ies. This will lead to an extremely flexi-ble broadcasting system in which all multimedia applications will be implemented in soft-ware. Applications will be down-loadable to the receiver off-air, and could be changed on thefly.

    But today, DA B is primarily a m odern radio. Its strengths are clarity of soun d, m obility, smallsize and weight and, soon to be, its low cost.

    The author believes that, in spite of all the barriers encountered along the way, DA B in Europehas definitely come out of the tunnel. The rest of the world will follow soon.

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    Acknowledgements

    The author w ishes to thank h is many colleagues and friends w ithin th e World DAB Forum, theEureka-147 DAB Project and the EBU, with wh om h e has worked closely for a nu mber of years

    in developing the DA B system, and on the roll-out of DA B in Europe and worldwide. Hewould also like to thank sincerely all those who have provided valuable data for this articleand those who have cooperated with him in finalizing the article.

    Bibliography

    [10] ETS 300 401: Radio Broadcasting Systems; Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) tomobile, portable and fixed receiversETSI, February 1995.

    [11] Digital Industry and Market Problem definition and costs of market failure, Final

    ReportPrognos, Basel, October 1998.

    [12] B. Marks: The HuMIDAB project looking at the Human Machine Interface of digitalradiosEBU Technical Review No. 278, Winter 1998.

    [13] D. Bowerman: Traffic, Travel and Tourism services through DABFunkschau Kongress on Digital Radio, 10-11 May 1999, Munich.

    [14] D. Kopitz and B. Marks: Traffic and Travel Information broadcasting protocols forthe 21st centuryEBU Technical Review No. 279, Spring 1999.

    [15] http://www.drm.org

    [16] F. Pereira and R. Koenen: MPEG-4 opening new frontiers to broadcast services.EBU Technical Review No. 279, Spring 1999.

    [17] ETS 300 744: Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB); Framing structure, channel codingand modulation for digital terrestrial television (DBV-T)ETSI

    [18] EBU BMC 510 rev. 3: Comparison of DAB and DVB-T for carrying Digital Radio serv-icesEBU, Geneva, May 1999.

    Franc Kozamernikgraduated in 1972 from the Faculty of Electrotechni-cal Engineering, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Since 1985 he has beenwith the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and has been involved in alarge variety of engineering activities, including digital audio broadcastingmatters, and the audio source coding and RF aspects of various audio andvideo broadcasting system developments.

    Currently, Mr Kozamernik is the co-ordinator of several EBU R&D ProjectGroups, including B/AIM (Audio in Multimedia), B/WB (Webcasting) and B/MM (Mobile Multimedia). He represents the EBU in several collaborativeProjects, i.e. the Eureka-147 DAB, S3M, Hypermedia and TeleWeb projects.

    He is also the Project Director of the World DAB Forum.

    http://www.drm.org/http://www.drm.org/