DAB+ being delayed by receiver manufacturers

I was confidently told late last year by the product manager of Frontier-Silicon's new Venice 5 DAB/DAB+ receiver module that the majority of manufacturers that use their modules (about 75% of all DAB receivers use Frontier-Silicon's modules) would have switched their products over to using the new DAB+ receiver modules by the end of 2007. Frontier-Silicon's DAB/DAB+ modules have been in production for over 5 months now, but as it stands there are only a handful of receivers in the shops that can be upgraded to DAB+ -- albeit that more will be released by the end of the year. So in this article I will look at what is going on with regards the availability of DAB+ receivers.

Pure Digital

Although the following quote from a WorldDMB document on the progress of DAB/DAB+ (on page 23 of the pdf file) shows that Pure Digital is planning to convert all of its receivers to support DAB+:

the WorldDMB Forum (the organisation that oversees DAB and DMB around the world) decided to design DAB+ in October 2005 (albeit that this information was kept out of the public domain until late 2006), so why is it taking Pure Digital (the market leaders in DAB receivers, and a company that only sells DAB products) over 3 years to convert all of its receivers to support DAB+?? The following section sheds some light on this. 

Comments on presentation given by Pure Digital's Director of Marketing

The following comments in blue bold writing are extracts from a transcript of a presentation given by Pure Digital's Director of Marketing, Colin Crawford, at this year's Digital Radio Show that was held in London in May this year. The transcript of the full presentation (excluding the introduction) can be found at the bottom of this page.

Colin Crawford: "we've invested a lot in what we've done, and we'd like some time now to make a little bit of money at it. So from that perspective, to be perfectly frank, the arrival of DAB+ on the scene hasn't been as entirely welcome as some people might imagine."

Firstly, it is important to remember that DAB+ is not just some ordinary additional feature, it is a non-backwardly compatible digital radio standard that will render non-upgradeable DAB receivers partially obsolete the first day that DAB+ stations launch, and completely obsolete a few years further down the line. It is therefore essential that receivers be converted to support DAB+ as quickly as possible so as to minimise the number of people that unwittingly buy non-upgradeable DAB radios only to realise a couple of years later that they won't be able to receive any of the DAB+ stations that will launch. 

But taking the above quote into consideration along with the ridiculously long time it is taking Pure Digital to convert its receivers to support DAB+, it seems to me that Pure Digital is trying to milk the sales of non-upgradeable DAB radios for as long as they can so that everybody that buys a non-upgradeable DAB radios will have to replace it at a later date. I would also suggest that it is no coincidence that Pure is making the bulk of its receivers DAB+-upgradeable by the end of 2008, because Australia is launching digital radio using DAB+ on 1st January 2009, and Switzerland will be launching DAB+ stations towards the end of 2008.

And if you're in any doubt about whether they are delaying the introduction of DAB+ receivers, the following extract from a press release issued on 31st August this year shows that they're actually re-launching most of their non-upgradeable radios in time for Christmas:

Out of all of the receivers mentioned above, the only DAB+-upgradeable receiver is the Pure Siesta. Their EcoPlus range is boasting a reduction in power consumption by a factor of approximately three to four, and when I enquired how they'd managed to do this they told me that they've changed from using linear to switched-mode power supplies; they're using lower power electronics such as regulators and amplifiers; they've moved to using a 'chip down' single PCB design; and they're using some software features that reduce the power consumption. In addition, both the Evoke-1S and the Tempus-1S are using new OLED (organic LED) displays. The above non-upgradeable range of receivers have been properly re-engineered, and yet they didn't bother to include Frontier-Silicon's DAB/DAB+ Venice 5 module, which is smaller than existing DAB modules, and Frontier-Silicon provided a reference design for the Venice 5 module specifically to allow receiver manufacturers to easily include it in existing receivers without needing to re-design the case. If that isn't milking sales of non-upgradeable DAB radios for as long as possible then I don't know what is.

Pure Digital ought to ask itself where it would be without the British public buying these non-upgradeable DAB radios that will all need to be replaced. The answer is that they wouldn't exist at all, because Pure Digital only sells DAB products. Furthermore, the only reason DAB started selling was due to the BBC broadcasting nineteen high-impact TV advertising campaigns, which I calculated using actual TV advertising cost figures from ITV Sales would have cost a grand total of £155m if they had been broadcast on commercial TV. And with DAB sales currently standing at 5.5m, that works out as the BBC pseudo-subsidising each and every DAB radio sold to date to the tune of £155m / 5.5m = £28. And it is again the British public that is effectively "funding" this pseudo-subsidy, because we pay for the BBC through the TV Licence Fee. But the only gratitude the British public gets for the fact that Pure Digital has a thriving business where they are the global leaders in DAB receiver sales is that they're deliberately delaying the launch of DAB+ receivers in order to milk sales of non-upgradeable receivers and to delay the time when DAB+ stations can launch in the UK..

DAB+ additional costs

Colin Crawford: "DAB+ significantly adds to the basic bill of materials cost on a radio. I'm just going to list those off for you:
* there's an extra $1.26 in AAC+ licensing
* there's an extra 10-15 euro cents for parametric stereo licensing
* there's almost an extra dollar in extra memory for a radio
* and there's at least 30 cents extra in PCB costs

That's a total on the order of $2.50, no matter what the retail price of the radio"

"So the simple fact is that there will be severe pressure on DAB manufacturers not to include support for DAB+ at least as an entry-level product, and at least until the demand for DAB+ is very strong and very clear."

Firstly, the only important issue at present is the additional costs required for a radio to be DAB+-upgradeable, because the DAB+ software upgrade isn't available yet and the costs of the licences don't apply until the receiver has been upgraded to actually support DAB+. So the only applicable costs to make a receiver DAB+-upgradeable are the memory costs and the PCB (printed circuit board) costs. However, I asked the product manager of the Venice 5 DAB/DAB+ module at Frontier-Silicon how much the additional memory would cost, and for ordinary receivers it would only cost 50 cents, not the $1 Colin Crawford claims. So the total cost to make a receiver DAB+-upgradeable is 50c + 30c = 80 cents, which at today's exchange rate is a gigantic 40 whole pence. Forty gigantic pence is clearly an outrageously large sum of money which can buy you numerous houses in London at current prices, and Pure Digital couldn't in their wildest dreams hope to increase the cost of their receivers by 40 gigantic pence and still sell their radios -- if they did so their entire company would fall to its knees and whither away and Colin Crawford would have to downsize from the probable company Mercedes he drives to a Fiat Panda. And we can't be having that!

Secondly, Colin Crawford's main argument against launching DAB+ receivers is that it would be difficult for receiver manufacturers to shoulder the increased costs involved. If DAB+ receivers were going to cost no more than non-upgradeable DAB receivers then he may have at least a slight justification in saying that, but the following quote from the same WorldDMB document I linked to above shows that DAB+ receivers will cost significantly more than DAB radios anyway:

Revisiting the additional costs quoted above, as I've already mentioned the additional memory will actually only cost an additional 50 cents according to Frontier-Silicon, so Colin Crawford's estimate of an additional cost of $2.50 per radio is actually only an additional $2.00 per radio -- a gigantic £1. But the WorldDMB document clearly says that we're likely to have to pay 15 euros extra (approximately £10) for a DAB+ receiver. Therefore, Colin Crawford's concerns about the additional costs are completely unfounded, because we will have to pay significantly more if we want a DAB+ receiver, so they are not going to be losing out here whatsoever. 

I'm afraid that I consider this to be another indication that Pure Digital wants to milk the sales of non-upgradeable DAB radios, and I think the way they're treating the public is absolutely outrageous.

I think it is fair to say, however, that it is a bit unfair to single out Pure Digital here, because they're obviously not the only manufacturer of DAB radios, and the other receiver manufacturers are just as guilty as Pure Digital with regards to DAB+. However, Pure Digital only sells DAB receivers, and they are the market leaders. Therefore, if they decided to convert their receivers to support DAB+ quickly then the rest of the manufacturers would be forced to follow suit or else they will lose out on sales.

Misinformation about DAB+

The only reason Pure Digital and the other DAB receiver manufacturers have been able to milk the sales of non-upgradeable DAB radios and delay launching DAB+ receivers is due to the way the DAB industry has successfully misinformed the public about DAB+. For example, Quentin Howard, the chief executive of the Digital One national multiplex operator and the current President of the WorldDMB Forum, appeared on Working Lunch on BBC2 earlier this year and he flatly denied that DAB+ would ever be used in the UK. This was quite simply extremely dishonest, because he knew full well that DAB+ will be used in the UK. 

The BBC Controller in charge of DAB also appeared on Radio 4's Feedback programme a few months ago to answer questions that were mostly about DAB+, and when asked about whether DAB was "in danger of becoming an obsolete technology", he answered: "I would say no", which again is dishonest, because he also knew full well that DAB+ stations will be launched in the UK. So his answer was designed to give listeners the impression that the status quo wouldn't change and that they should go out and buy to-be-obsolete DAB radios. I find it absolutely incredible that he had the audacity to deceive the public in this way after all of the furore surrounding the BBC deceiving the public in recent times. Bizarrely, he went on to say that DAB+ receivers would be coming out in the next few months, but I'm afraid that that does not absolve him of guilt from saying that DAB isn't in danger of becoming obsolete technology, because probably the vast majority of listeners to Feedback don't know what DAB+ is; therefore they will have concentrated on his answer about DAB and whether it was in danger of becoming obsolete or not.

I've also been informed by a number of people that have emailed Pure Digital to ask questions about DAB+, and Pure Digital responded by saying: "there are no plans to use DAB+ in the UK" or similar responses, which is again highly dishonest. 

Given the DAB industry's history with respect to public information I should really have expected them to be dishonest about DAB+, because at the end of the day they are the same people who made the decision to reduce the audio quality on DAB and then after they'd reduced it they continued to promote DAB on the basis that it provides "CD-quality sound" or "superb digital quality sound" -- the latter is also meant to convey that DAB provides CD-quality sound, but they were actually banned by the Advertising Standards Authority from claiming that it provides CD-quality.

Transcript of presentation by Pure Digital's Director of Marketing

The following text is a transcript of a presentation given by Pure Digital's Director of Marketing, Colin Crawford, at this year's Digital Radio Show that was held in London in May this year. 

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