France launches public consultation on digital radio

5th October 2006

The French communications regulator, the CSA, has launched a public consultation on the launch of digital radio.

The CSA believes that with the successful launch of digital terrestrial TV in France last year, it is essential that radio also converts to digital in order to allow listeners to benefit from improved sound quality and new services.

Thankfully, all of the largest French radio broadcasters are in favour of using the DAB+ system, which uses the AAC+ audio codec, so the promise of improved sound quality actually looks very likely to materialise in France, unlike in the UK where early promises of high audio quality were broken by the broadcasters and the audio quality on DAB is very poor.

Following a public consultation in 2005, the CSA has also decided that France should launch digital radio on a dedicated network, rather than trying to digitize the FM and AM bands – the latter being the method preferred in the US with their IBOC (In-Band On Channel).

The consultation's aim is to seek the opinions of stakeholders on the necessary conditions for a successful launch of digital radio in France, in particular the planning of frequencies in Band III and L-band, and on the deployment of the new service.

The consultation closes on 15th November.

First "official" reference to the DAB+ system

The French Ministry for Culture and Communicatins has also launched a consultation on digital radio, in which the following candidate systems are mentioned (on pages 11 - 12):

System	Basic description	Audio codec most likely for radio use
T-DAB	The outdated and inefficient DAB system	MP2
T-DAB+	The updated version of the DAB system with the AAC+ audio codec and stronger error correction	AAC+
T-DMB	Standard developed for mobile TV, but almost identical to DAB+ in terms of technology used	AAC+
DRM	The digital radio system designed to replace AM in the LW, MW and SW bands	AAC+
DRM+	The DRM system extended to work at frequencies up to the FM band, and with wider channel bandwidths for higher audio quality	AAC+
IBOC	In-Band On-Channel - the system being used in the US, where digital versions of the FM stations transmit in the 'guard band' next to the FM station itself	HDC (HD Radio Codec - proprietary codec)
DVB-T	The digital terrestrial TV system (i.e. Freeview)	MP2 / AAC+ *
DVB-H	Developed for mobile TV, but can carry digital radio as well	AAC+
E-SDR	European satellite digital radio system(s) - proposed to be launched in 2009/2010	AAC+
DVB-SSP	DVB-Satellite Services to Portable Devices - i.e. similar to the E-SDR system	AAC+

* France uses both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 for video on its digital terrestrial TV system (MPEG-4 for pay-TV and HDTV, MPEG-2 for non-pay-TV), so AAC+ will be available as standard on MPEG-4-enabled set-top boxes

The table above speaks volumes about just how out-of-date the old DAB system has become, because all of the other systems can use one of the modern high-efficiency audio codecs (both AAC+ and HDC are high-efficiency codecs).