DAB sounds worse than FM

All DAB radios will be obsolete in a few years' time

Digital Radio Listeners Group

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If you subscribe to this newsletter you will receive a regular newsletter that will keep you up to date with the latest news on DAB and digital radio in general. This will include new product information, new station, multiplexes, or transmitter information, changes to bit rates, news of any regulatory changes that might affect the long term future of DAB, DSat or Freeview, if any stations have been sounding particularly bad I will name and shame them, any news however remote it might be of future spectrum for DAB, news regarding OFCOM, new MPEG encoders and station equipment upgrades, you name it I will tell you first.

Of course, when any special offers on receivers appear then an email will be sent as soon as possible to give you the best chance of getting your hands on any reduced tuners or car stereos.

Subscription to the group will also mean that myself and others will be campaigning on your behalf to improve DAB. This will include lobbying the Department for Culture, Media & Sport, the Department for Trade & Industry, the BBC, the Radio Authority, MPs, and the commercial radio groups and stations.

The reason for this group to exist in the first place is that DAB and digital radio in general is at an important stage in its development and from now (May 2002) until around the Summer of 2004 there will be some very important developments taking place which will have a very significant impact on DAB and digital radio in general. For instance, the Communications Bill white paper that was presented in May 2002 sets out the government's vision of communications for the future and it is vitally important that the consumer will be able to have a say in the future of digital radio.

More importantly for the longer-term of DAB, the Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) is carrying out a spectrum audit which is to be ready for an important meeting of the European states where bandwidth for each country is allocated. If DAB in the UK is going to provide high quality audio and high choice then it is vital that DAB is allocated more spectrum in Band III additional to what it has already. This will allow the BBC to get another multiplex and would allow more BBC stations as well as vastly improve the audio quality of the existing BBC stations so that they would be back to what they were pre-Christmas 2001 when the bit rates were reduced. This would have the knock-on effect of making the commercial broadcasters increase their bit rates so that they could compete on audio quality. Therefore, it is vital that we make our point about this as otherwise DAB may be completely overlooked and it could then take many years before any more bandwidth might become available. If this did happen then the choice available would suffer and the audio quality will deteriorate further still.

Although the BBC stations' bit rates on DSat are already impressive an objective will be to request the BBC to increase bit rates of Radios 1-4 to 256kbps. 

Obviously no action is needed on your behalf but if it is felt that something is important enough to mention it then contact email and postal addresses and telephone numbers of people to complain to will be included from time to time.

As regulatory changes are very infrequent and the allocation of new bandwidth and such like is a very slow process, the newsletter will typically almost entirely consist of product, multiplex and station information and general DAB news so if audio quality isn't your thing then don't let this put you off.