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El Reg reports
With digital reaching its audience targets, the government set a 2017 date for the death of analogue FM radio in [Norway].
[...]However, the Norwegian Local Radio Association disputes the communications ministry's figure, pointing instead to Norwegian Government Statistical Bureau data that "listening to DAB radio is presently limited to 19% on a daily basis."
In an e-mail sent to Vulture South [El Reg's Australian operation], the association says the Minister of Culture's announcement swept up DVB-T and Internet radio to claim that "digital listening" had hit the 50 per cent target that triggers an FM switch-off.
The association also notes that an all-DAB nation would provide a lot less service to motoring tourists without digital radios in their cars. "This proposed change means that most visitors will not be able to listen to national channels or public radio for emergency alerts, traffic or other important information", the group said in a media release e-mailed to El Reg. It claims that a focus on large broadcasters would leave FM investments by community radio stranded.
The local broadcasters are backed by the Progress Party, a partner in the coalition government in Norway, [as well as by] the Greens.
Related: Norway to be First Nation to Switch Off National Analog FM Stations
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:04PM
analog transmissions waste a lot of spectrum compared to modern digital
That is not a good argument because most content is rubbish anyway. Allowing 100x more stations (most of them owned by the same people, running under different names) will not improve anything. It will make things worse. If there is shortage of broadcast space, then so be it. There are limitations to everything.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:16PM
AC is correct in that content sucks and will not improve, but OP was probably trying for a spectral efficiency argument. Old fashioned analog signals simply take more power than a digital equivalent, all things being equal (which in implementation they usually are not, see the "demand" to squirt out 5 streams and digital paging and WTF).
So at least in theory if you replaced a signal channel of FM with an equivalent single digital stream then the amount of power required would drop and you'd end up saving umpty-zillion train cars full of coal annually by needing or generating that electricity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_efficiency [wikipedia.org]
In practice it'll be interesting to watch it unfold, like the conversion from analog to digital TV in the USA. Locally we have one OTA station that sends a single HD stream, and a PBS station that spams out like 5 low bitrate low res feeds and everything in between.
In theory you could broadcast the same amount of junk while saving a lot of energy, although the marketplace seems to be demanding broadcast a ton of new extra junk no one pays attention to at the same-ish power level.
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 29 2015, @02:07AM
One HUGE problem with a transition from analog to digital RF broadcasts is in losing the graceful signal quality degredation that analog transmissions allow for. Two such examples involve cellular phones and over-the-air television.
The analog-to-digital transition for cell phones changed calls that were previously filled with static and noise but nonetheless useful for easily transmitting verbal information into near-uselessness in the form of dropped calls or random introduction of gaps/drops in the voice data.
OTA television changed from a signal that used to be easily watchable even if there was a dusting of static "snow" over the visuals and/or some hissing introduced over the audio, to a horrific affair where there are frequent random freezes that completely drop all data for perhaps one or two seconds. The former situation was unnoticeable after a short time, but the latter is almost unbearably jarring in addition to the associated absolute loss of video and audio data.
Having observed such factors, it is my general opinion that these analog-to-digital conversions are just another way to benefit a select few people while taking the gains out of the losses suffered by a larger number of others.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday April 29 2015, @09:47AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 29 2015, @03:07PM
My personal observations directly contradict your claims. During the time of analog-digital switchover for both cell phones and OTA television, when following the same usage patterns in the same locations, signal quality was significantly degraded with the new digital transmissions using either "same-in-class" phones from Nokia, or with a digital converter box and the original equipment for OTA TV.
Prior to the switchover, there was a significant useability window for both mediums in which interference or weak signals would cause analog degredation, but in which the data content for both voice calls and OTA TV remained completely useable. Digital "equivalents" were markedly degraded by comparison, and even to this day there are times when a digital cellphone call will be rendered nearly useless due to continual audio cut-outs, e.g. dropping every third word during a conference call. Not terribly useful. Not everyone lives in the heart of a major metropolis or has clear line of sight to multiple transmission towers.
Whatever claims you make could be true in some circumstances, but they do not appear to be true in mine.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday April 29 2015, @03:49PM
My personal observations directly contradict your claims. During the time of analog-digital switchover for both cell phones and OTA television, when following the same usage patterns in the same locations, signal quality was significantly degraded with the new digital transmissions
That's because, at the same time as the switchover, the power of the transmitters reduced dramatically, precisely because of the error correction (the signal can accommodate more loss without the receiver noticing).
Prior to the switchover, there was a significant useability window for both mediums in which interference or weak signals would cause analog degredation, but in which the data content for both voice calls and OTA TV remained completely useable.
Because the signal contained no error correction. Small errors were directly visible to you. With a digital signal using error correcting codes, it's far more binary: either enough of the signal gets through that you can reconstruct the data, or there's so much corruption that you can't get any.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 29 2015, @04:41PM
Whatever the cause of the increased degredation of signal during the analog-to-digital transitions, it was observable. The receivers (human and otherwise) noticed increased data loss.
With analog transmissions, the degredation of signals was most often graceful, gradual, and useful for reliable data transmission in the meantime, in direct contrast to the sudden drop-off-a-cliff degredation of digital signals; that is the main point I am driving at.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday April 29 2015, @04:55PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 29 2015, @05:02PM
Erm, no [soylentnews.org]: "One HUGE problem with a transition from analog to digital RF broadcasts is in losing the graceful signal quality degredation that analog transmissions allow for."
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday April 29 2015, @05:13PM
Which is nonsense. 'Graceful degradation' in analogue systems means passing errors along to the end user. In digital radio systems, these errors aren't passed along to the end user, they're fixed by the error correcting codes. The system gracefully handles errors by hiding them from the user. It would be trivial to add a mode to a digital TV that would read the number of bit errors from the decoder and apply a noise filter to it, which would give you what you claim you want. Most users prefer to just have the clear picture.
The real problem that you are encountering is that the transmitters are not strong enough for wherever you've put your receiver. This is an issue of antenna position and signal strength. Digital signals, because of the error correction, are far more resilient to signal loss and so require far lower transmitter power. In a lot of rollouts, this is taken a bit too far and you end up with people who previously got an analogue signal that, if it were digital, would be perfectly viewable, instead getting a digital signal that is too noisy to watch.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @05:34PM
No, it is fact: a direct quote of the first sentence from my first post on the subject. You may well be correct in the point you are attempting to address, but that point is not the one I was writing about.
Data loss using analog signals, notably with cellular phones, is typically gradual and graceful: the noise gets louder and louder over time and often allows for last-moment "call you back" sort of messages to be passed before becoming completely unuseable. Digital signals typically go from sounding completely clear to completely dropping chunks of voice data in a blink.