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: 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.