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Although this perhaps makes sense from a technical, maintenance and cost perspective it's, contrary to the NRK owned radio.no's opinion, an absolute horrible de
by lordlarm 11y ago
Although this perhaps makes sense from a technical, maintenance and cost perspective it's, contrary to the NRK owned radio.no's opinion, an absolute horrible deal for a large part of the users.
«55 per cent of households have at least one DAB radio, according to Digitalradio survey by TNS Gallup», which leaves 45% not currently having access to a DAB radio. Many of the having _one_ radio has this in their home and perhaps not in their most important place: the car.
In order to elegantly implement a DAB radio in your car you need to attach a dongle to your window and run cables into a (sometimes) new radio altogether. Whilst this may be a simple procedure for _some_ it's for the vast majority a huge burden - both in terms of time and money (often costing around 3000NOK - 380USD).
It's well and fine that they started the implementation of DAB in Norway in the mid-90s, but it's just in recent times that we've seen cars come with DAB reception by default. They should at least wait until 80-90% of all cars have access to DAB before switching over - which could take I'm guessing up to 10 years.
This is like only supporting Chrome on important governmental sites - which would rightly cause an uproar on HN. Radio should be about accessibility and content, not the medium - which should change naturally and over time.
- acjohnson55 11y agoYeah, it's kind of surprising that they didn't mandate inclusion of DAB-capable radios in cars years earlier. Had they done that, it seems like the consumers would be much more prepared for a hard switch. This sounds like it's going to be pretty disruptive. Also, why do the radios require a dongle?
- scholia 11y agoSome of the converters essentially receive DAB and then convert it to FM to rebroadcast it to your current car radio.
- caf 11y agoRight - I think this stat is the killer one right now: - 20 % of private cars are equipped with DAB radio Surely the car the last redoubt of radio.
- kristofferR 11y agoActually not, only 23% of the time spent listening to the radio in Norway is while driving: http://radio.no/2015/03/en-fjerdedel-av-lyttingen-skjer-i-bil/ http://radio.no/2015/03/en-fjerdedel-av-lyttingen-skjer-i-bi... (Norwegian article)
- scholia 11y agoNot just the car but the mobile phone. Most phones in Europe* (not just smartphones) can get FM radio, because including it adds nothing to the cost. DAB, by contrast, costs too much and uses too much power to be included in phones. So, Norway is not just giving up on car users, it is also giving up on mobile phone users, ie the next generation of potential radio listeners. * Most US smartphones also include FM radios, because it's a standard element of radio (FM, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth) chips. However, FM is often disabled by the manufacturer (eg Apple) or by the carrier. See http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2015/04/16/400178385/the-hidden-fm-radio-inside-your-pocket-and-why-you-cant-use-it http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2015/04/16/400178... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7DoPkkDFjM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7DoPkkDFjM
- legulere 11y agoMost of the time the antenna is missing for the fm radio
- izacus 11y agoUm, no, the headphones act as an antenna.
- narrowrail 11y agoThe relevant pin still needs a trace from the chip to the headphone port, which is what I think was meant.
- scholia 11y ago
- cagenut 11y agoThis isn't like a full blown counter-argument, but a pattern I like to look for whenever there's debate on some kind of public policy change is if the 'anti' side is predominately an argument for the status quo of car culture. To me this is the real climate change denial-ism. Not the abstract argument over whether its real or not, but the steady stream of personal and political decisions people make to prioritize car culture over X.
- kristofferR 11y ago> Radio should be about accessibility and content, not the medium - which should change naturally and over time. That is actually the main argument in favor of DAB. The FM space in Norway only has space for 5 nationally broadcasted channels, DAB has space for 40 (22 already used).
- keenerd 11y ago> The FM space in Norway only has space for 5 nationally broadcasted channels This is not correct. Norway has just as large an FM segment as every other country in the world and could have just as many channels. They simply manage the spectrum questionably. DAB+ will not help that. http://eng.nkom.no/technical/broadcast/analog-radio/fm-radio-in-norway http://eng.nkom.no/technical/broadcast/analog-radio/fm-radio...
- goodmachine 11y agoBad luck, Norway. The UK is in a roughly similar position, but our govt is unlikely to switch off FM until 2020-ish at the earliest (was 2015, then 2018... now "whenevs"). It's sad to consider how governments foisted DAB on listeners exclusively for the benefit of state broadcasters - the list of fails is extensive here: DAB gives you demonstrably worse reception, poorer sound quality, more expensive hardware, added costs to replace old hardware, added costs to run (4x power consumption), etc. The magic carrot of 'more channels/ more choice' thing never happened either: thus, a bum deal all round. I would guess the upside for broadcasters (cheaper infrastructure, more listeners) may have been significantly overstated too. http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/sep/25/digital-radio-sales-dab http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/sep/25/digital-radio-s... http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/16/digital-radio-switchover-2020-ed-vaizey http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/dec/16/digital-radio-s... 24 problems with DAB (2010) http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/apr/12/dab-radio-problems http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2010/apr/12/dab-r...
- kristofferR 11y agoThankfully the "more channels/ more choice" actually happened in Norway. However - apart from that, DAB is a bad deal. Right now it's become a typical "we can't stop right in the middle, so let's continue forward full speed"-situation. So much has been invested in DAB in Norway that stopping the transition would be just as expensive, if not more so.
- scholia 11y agoIf DAB was a modern technology that might make sense. However, it was developed in the 1990s around the MP2 codec. It's roughly as old as the web. You'd not choose DAB if you were doing digital radio today.
- kristofferR 11y agoNorway is using DAB+, which is based on the modern HE-AAC codec. We were going to use the old MP2-based DAB, but switched to DAB+ pretty quickly. Right now most channels are being transmitted in either DAB or DAB+ (DAB+ devices can receive both), but DAB+ is the future and DAB is going away. It's going to suck for the early DAB adopters though, who's soon going to be left with incompatible radios.
- legulere 11y agoThat seems pretty similar to the situation when analog sattelite TV was shut down. You always have a big amount that will only switch over when the old standard gets shut down. Why else should they if the old standard is good enough for them?
- izacus 11y agoDo you actually think people will buy a new 15.000+EUR car just to get a digital radio in it? Most of reasonably modern cars don't really have user replacable headunits (and even if you do replace it, you usually lose all stalk and display functionality).
- jkot 11y agoPlus many people wont upgrade, because internet is just fine. It is replacing obsolete technology with slightly less obsolete technology.