World's first T-DMB subscription radio service launched in Singapore

2nd August 2006

What's thought to be the world's first subscription-based digital terrestrial radio service has launched in Singapore, with 10 radio stations transmitting on a T-DMB multiplex.

Which audio codec is being used is unknown, but as the T-DMB system includes the AAC and AAC+ modern audio codecs, it is expected that the radio stations will be using these advanced formats rather than the ancient MP2 audio codec used on the standard DAB system -- it would be utterly incompetent to transmit radio stations in the MP2 format when AAC/AAC+ could be used, especially as 10 stations are transmitting on this multiplex the bit rates will be of the order of 112 - 128 kbps, which would sound terrible if MP2 is used but would sound excellent if AAC is used!