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posted by janrinok on Tuesday April 28 2015, @03:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the elites-with-flawed-data-making-choices dept.

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

Related Stories

Norway to be First Nation to Switch Off National Analog FM Stations 53 comments

The Government of Norway announces

[April 16], the Ministry of Culture announced a national FM-switch off, to complete the transition to digital radio. Norway is making [a] historical move into a new radio era, being the first country in the world to decide upon an analogue switch-off for all major radio channels. With DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) and digital radio, listeners will be provided with more radio channels and greater diversity in content.

[...]The DAB-coverage in Norway now exceeds FM-coverage. DAB provides Norway with 22 national channels, as opposed to five channels transmitting nationwide on FM.

[...]Switch-off starts in Nordland county 11th January 2017 and ends with the northernmost counties Troms and Finnmark [13th December] 2017.

Official announcement in Norwegian. Also covered at Ars Technica.

Developers Working to Get FM Radio Function Enabled in BQ Ubuntu Phones 31 comments

Silviu Stahie reports via Softpedia

Many of the new SoC solutions [...] have FM Radio functionalities, but Google doesn't provide any kind of API for Android devices. It's basically just something that some companies could implement if they had the time or the drive to do it properly.

[...] Most [...] things are usually difficult when [they haven't] been done before. It's true that Radio FM functions have been available on older devices, but modern devices are not doing it, so there is little to no documentation on how to proceed.

A developer from the community is now working to get this function working on Ubuntu phones, and he's already enlisted the help of the Ubuntu developers. As it turns out, this has been talked about before, but for now, it's not a high priority.

Some of the Ubuntu phones, like the two BQ devices that are now available on the market, have Mediatek hardware and they are capable for[sic] Radio FM functions--at least in theory. What's more interesting, is that they should also be able to transmit, not only to receive.

"MediaTek (Aquaris E4.5 and E5) decided to implement custom kernel drivers with a custom character device (/dev/fm) and custom ioctl commands. There seem to be userspace libraries (libfm*) including a JNI wrapper in /system/lib of the Android container on our Ubuntu phones", developer sturmflut wrote on the official mailing list.

The ideal situation would be to allow users to initialize and tune the FM radio on the Aquaris E4.5 and E5 devices and to link this functionality to the media hub. It will take a while, but it's quite possible that FM Radio will be one of the numerous features that you can only find in Ubuntu phones.

Last Summer, Jack Wallen at TechRepublic reported:

[More after the break.]

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:02PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:02PM (#176127)

    I don't understand why they need to cut it off. The channel is still used with the digital so why remove the analog part? I guess my old radio in my car will have to have it's own radio station to enjoy my ride. Might print it on the side of my car so others can enjoy it too.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Bot on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:17PM

      by Bot (3902) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:17PM (#176132) Journal

      Two possible reasons:
      1- forced obsolescence of equipment for both receivers and broadcasters (short goal)
      2- killing broadcasting altogether (long goal: everything filtered by the internet, so what you listen to is trackable and optionally tampered with, 1984 style).

      --
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      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:54PM

        by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:54PM (#176146)

        3 - security theater

        Most of the digital services support remote wakeup and announcement. So next time there's a divorce custody dispute 50 miles away, or a thunderstorm 25 miles away, even radios that are switched off will blare into life to warn you about the emergency. Sounds crazy, but true. Already implemented in Sweden from what I've heard.

        • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:25PM

          by frojack (1554) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:25PM (#176190) Journal

          Heard where?

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        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Bot on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:42PM

          by Bot (3902) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:42PM (#176199) Journal

          That can be achieved with side channels on FM, like those already present for info and crap. I think my 2007 car radio can be configured for interrupting me with traffic info and such things.
          Oh and it can be achieved with cellphones, which are more widespread than cars.

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          Account abandoned.
      • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:14PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:14PM (#176157)

        killing broadcasting altogether

        Yes, so the century-old technology no longer works. And this "digital" takes people back to the stone age, and they have to start from scratch, effectively crushing dissent.

        They are probably using Norway as a testing ground to check people's reactions, if they will find out under whose orders this change is being made; which ones make the most noise about it, and so on.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by ikanreed on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:17PM

        by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:17PM (#176186) Journal

        Or... and this is just a hypothetical here, the reasons given in the article are quite reasonable: that (nationally owned) bandwidth is being wasted on 19% of people, when the majority of people have moved on to requesting the actual things they want to listen to instead of listening to whatever the stations see fit to air.

        Reserving huge sections of national resources to suit the needs of a small minority of users is inefficient.

        And you're a conspiratorial nutball who needs to grow up.

        • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:34PM

          by frojack (1554) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:34PM (#176195) Journal

          : that (nationally owned) bandwidth is being wasted on 19% of people,

          Is there a lot of contention for that particular bandwidth in a small country like Norway?
          And when you say "WASTE", what resource is actually depleted?

          87.5 to 108.0 megahertz (EU FM allocation) does not exactly have any significant group clamoring for its re-designation.

          --
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          • (Score: 2) by ikanreed on Tuesday April 28 2015, @07:50PM

            by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 28 2015, @07:50PM (#176222) Journal

            You mean besides cell phone networks, a thing almost every citizen needs and uses?

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @08:04PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @08:04PM (#176230)

              Free to air not in a phone company' vocabulary.

            • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday April 28 2015, @11:11PM

              by frojack (1554) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @11:11PM (#176318) Journal

              Well I don't know of a single manufacturer that operates either towers or cell phones in that bandwidth.
              I suppose Norway could build them from the ground up.

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            • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday April 29 2015, @02:18AM

              by sjames (2882) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @02:18AM (#176413) Journal

              Definitely not them. That band is practically worthless to them.

        • (Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:53PM

          by Bot (3902) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:53PM (#176203) Journal

          We'll see the fruit the tree bears.

          --
          Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:37PM

      by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:37PM (#176138)

      The most obvious and reasonable answer is spectrum. Radio spectrum is limited, and analog transmissions waste a lot of spectrum compared to modern digital means. This is exactly why regular VHF NTSC TV was finally eliminated here in the US in the switch to HDTV, so that valuable spectrum could be auctioned off by the FCC and used for other purposes.

      The thing with cars shows exactly what's wrong with radios in cars as compared to aircraft, and why cars should be more like aircraft. In a car, when something's obsolete, you're generally stuck with it. Back in the 80s and into the 90s, many cars (particularly foreign ones) had radios that were a standard size, called "DIN". If you didn't like the stock radio, you pulled it out and put an aftermarket radio or CD player in there, and it fit perfectly. Not any more; now everything's customized for the dash, so unless some aftermarket company makes something just for your make/model, you're stuck with what's there. It's even worse if your stereo is combined with the HVAC system.

      On aircraft, this kind of thing is never a problem; all the dashboard equipment is standard sized and easily removed with four screws, so even if the aircraft is 50 years old, it's easy to replace a radio or transponder with a newer model. "It wasn't like that when my aircraft was built!" is never an excuse in aviation; putting a brand-new GPS navigation system in a half-century-old aircraft is not that hard to do.

      • (Score: 2) by GungnirSniper on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:45PM

        by GungnirSniper (1671) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:45PM (#176142) Journal

        It would have been preferable to also switch AM stations to FM around the same time as the NTSC switch-off, thus opening even more bandwidth. Or are AM frequencies useless?

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:03PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:03PM (#176152)

          are AM frequencies useless?

          Basically, yes. Other than local-ish regional-ish low bandwidth voice to an existing installed base of hardware.

          Nobody is going to sell wireless internet bandwidth at 1 MHz RF freq etc. Useless for any other for-profit service. Theoretically if there were some weird shortage of aircraft NDB beacons or dGPS transmitters (which there are not) then the AM BCB would be a tolerable location for expansion. WRT non-profit services I'm sure the ham radio operators would find it scientifically intriguing to take the band over.

          There is a slight power advantage. To get about the same land coverage you need maybe 5x to 10x the power going from AM to FM so there are financial issues. On the other end the hideous transmitting antenna for AM freqs isn't a problem anymore.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by gnuman on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:11PM

          by gnuman (5013) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:11PM (#176156)

          It would have been preferable to also switch AM stations to FM around the same time as the NTSC switch-off, thus opening even more bandwidth. Or are AM frequencies useless?

          You should learn about bandwidth.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandwidth_%28signal_processing%29 [wikipedia.org]

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FM_broadcasting#Other_subcarrier_services [wikipedia.org]
          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AM_broadcasting#Broadcast_frequency_bands [wikipedia.org]

          AM radio channel spacing is less than 10kHz. FM bandwidth is 10x that, generally spacing between stations is at least 200kHz. This is why AM radio will most likely remain as-is, while higher frequencies of FM are taken over by digital broadcasts.

          • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:44PM

            by frojack (1554) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:44PM (#176200) Journal

            Except that digital broadcasts don't need all that bandwidth. Especially not TV broadcasts, which are digital and mostly move out of VHF.
            The only thing contending for the upper end of the FM spectrum would be air to ground radio.

            Also FM spacing is often as low as 50khs in europe, especially Italy where mountainous conditions (sounds like Norway) , and FM radio's capture selectivity can actually handle this quite well even if the radio can actually "hear" another station overlapping.

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            • (Score: 2) by gnuman on Tuesday April 28 2015, @11:54PM

              by gnuman (5013) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @11:54PM (#176338)

              Except that digital broadcasts don't need all that bandwidth. Especially not TV broadcasts, which are digital and mostly move out of VHF.

              That's my point. They want to replace FM because FM is not very bandwidth friendly and there is pressure from the wireless internet space to free bandwidth. Digital signals not only occupy less bandwidth, they can have much better encoding than simple frequency modulation.

              On the other hand, AM is much more bandwidth friendly. This is why no one is likely to touch standard AM frequencies (below 2MHz) for the foreseeable future.

              • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday April 29 2015, @02:53AM

                by sjames (2882) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @02:53AM (#176432) Journal

                Let's have some perspective here. First, the entire FM radio band is 20MHz. That's almost enough for one WiFi channel. A digital television channel is 6 MHz wide, so you could get 3 inside the entire FM radio band.

                The AM (medium wave) band is 1 MHz total, so taking it away would benefit nobody.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:04PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:04PM (#176153)

        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

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:16PM (#176159)

          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

            by Fauxlosopher (4804) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @02:07AM (#176404) Journal

            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

              by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @09:47AM (#176524) Journal
              The reason that you perceive this is that the digital signals contain a lot of error correction information. At the same amount of signal loss that would have rendered the analogue picture unintelligible snow, the digital signal is fine. Once you pass the threshold that the error corruption can handle, you're left with nothing.
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              • (Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 29 2015, @03:07PM

                by Fauxlosopher (4804) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @03:07PM (#176640) Journal

                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

                  by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @03:49PM (#176673) Journal

                  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.

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                  • (Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 29 2015, @04:41PM

                    by Fauxlosopher (4804) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @04:41PM (#176712) Journal

                    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

                      by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @04:55PM (#176719) Journal
                      The point is that this has absolutely nothing to do with analogue vs digital. The related point is that digital does what you want better than analogue. Your complaint is that a lower-power signal has a shorter range. This is not exactly news to anyone.
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                      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 29 2015, @05:02PM

                        by Fauxlosopher (4804) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @05:02PM (#176724) Journal

                        Your complaint is that a lower-power signal has a shorter range.

                        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

                          by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @05:13PM (#176731) Journal

                          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.

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                          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @05:34PM

                            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 29 2015, @05:34PM (#176744)

                            Which is nonsense

                            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.

      • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:24PM

        by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:24PM (#176189) Journal

        In other words car development is going the involution path. It works - wreck it! ;)
        Car slot better be DIN or the manufacturer can go and f-ck them self. (any good suggestion to make bad car design painful for the manufacturer?)

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:58PM

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:58PM (#176205)

          Car slot better be DIN or the manufacturer can go and f-ck them self.

          So I guess you're never going to buy a car older than 1995 or so, for the rest of your life?

          Not only that, but you can't expect stereo makers to keep making DIN-size stuff when cars aren't using that standard any more.

          These days, what'd be better, since everything is going to software anyway, is to have modular components hidden inside the dash, connected to a car PC, running Linux with mostly open-source software (at least for the basic software stack; the "apps" don't have to be). This way, you can modify it yourself, or buy other modules or software components from other vendors and plug them in. The new Mazdas have a Linux PC with touchscreen in them, and people have already figured out how to hack in (root password is "jci", for Johnson Controls Inc., the vendor that makes it) and modify things and even make their own new apps for it. As long as they keep the entertainment system separate from, say, the engine and braking systems (or at least make it so the entertainment system can read from those and give you diagnostic information, but it can't write to them and modify them easily), this shouldn't be a safety concern for the carmaker.

          • (Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 29 2015, @02:13AM

            by Fauxlosopher (4804) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @02:13AM (#176410) Journal

            So I guess you're never going to buy a car older than 1995 or so, for the rest of your life?

            I am indeed strongly considering having my next vehicle(s) built from parts. While I do appreciate anti-lock brakes, increased fuel economy, and increased reliability, I'm at the point where I'm willing to trade that away for not having to put up the consequences of driving around in a crappy, vulnerable computer with wheels on it.

            • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday April 29 2015, @12:18PM

              by Grishnakh (2831) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @12:18PM (#176564)

              Cars from the 90s almost all had ABS; that really shouldn't be a concern. The big losses will be fuel economy, and even worse, crash protection. (A 90s Honda fully rebuilt shouldn't have any reliability problems, though I guess some of the new-old-stock parts could have limited lifetimes.) Today's cars will protect you far better than anything of that era in a crash.

              And what do you mean by "vulnerable" anyway? We haven't seen any instances I can recall of anyone "rooting" a car and doing anything dangerously mischievous. Maybe it's possible to easily mess with an entertainment/navigation computer like in the Mazdas I mentioned earlier, but that isn't going to cause you to crash unless maybe you're one of those people who blindly does exactly what the GPS says, even if it tells you to turn into oncoming traffic. I would hope no one on this site is that dumb :-)

              • (Score: 1) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 29 2015, @04:57PM

                by Fauxlosopher (4804) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @04:57PM (#176720) Journal

                Defensive driving and plain old seatbelts are all the crash protection I want. I've removed airbags from my vehicles, as I don't want an explosive device of any sort sitting in front of my face. I accept the risks and dangers of road travel, and don't need any nannies enforcing choices for me at gunpoint (as government agents do with vehicle manufactuerers).

                Granted, I am unaware of anyone "rooting" a car in the wild (though such has been demonstrated [arstechnica.com] as a proof-of-concept [today.com]). Increasing numbers of new vehicles are coming standard with the ability for a private company (OnStar) to remotely make your ride stop working at any time. Then there's the matter of data collected by your car's computer(s) being treated as government property [rt.com] instead of properly obtaining a warrant for a search of private property. Such problems are still relatively low-impact today, but do you see the situation improving in terms of respect for due process of law and/or sanctity of private property ownership? I don't.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @11:14PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @11:14PM (#176319)

        They can kinda make a small digital to analog retransmitter. Something that takes the digital spectra and retransmits a localized analog one on an FM station that the radio receiver on your car can pick up. Such a thing can easily be plugged into a cigarette lighter or someplace.

    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:35PM

      by frojack (1554) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:35PM (#176169) Journal

      As pointed out in the original story (if you dig deep enough) it was only the State Run radio system that was going all DAB.

      I don't know the split between private local broadcasters and state run radio in Norway.

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    • (Score: 3, Informative) by NoMaster on Tuesday April 28 2015, @10:51PM

      by NoMaster (3543) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @10:51PM (#176305)

      The channel is still used with the digital so why remove the analog part?

      Not so in the case of DAB/DAB+ - it uses different frequencies (typically 'Band III' i.e. the VHF TV band from ~170MHz to ~240MHz*, rather than the ~88MHz to 108MHz FM band). In fact, it was specifically designed so that multiple DAB muxes (~1.5MHz bandwidth each) fit fairly well into typical standard TV channel bandwidths (5/6/7/8MHz wide).

      Not to mention that a major selling point of DAB/DAB+ is its claims of higher efficiency (alleged much lower transmitter power required + sharing the costs across broadcasters). It doesn't quite add up as well the DAB Consortium & their many local lobby groups claim, and basically amounts to 'greenwashing', but it's certainly true to some extent - and so keeping the analogue FM going in parallel means double the running costs (or more).

      In short, it's not like HDRadio IBOC as used in (pretty much only) the US, where the digital signal is shoehorned across the sidebands of the existing analogue (& adjacent) channels.

      (* Yes, that's ignoring the L-band allocation, which AFAIK no-one actually uses - though Canada, among others, did for a while...)

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by SubiculumHammer on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:02PM

    by SubiculumHammer (5191) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:02PM (#176128)

    Analog is the hotness.
    Digital is the buzz kill.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:33PM

    by jmorris (4844) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:33PM (#176136)

    If digital is truly better in every way then broadcasters will adopt it on their own as will listeners. I have not carefully examined the radio dial in Norway but in most of the world there is a fair amount of spectrum compared to the number of actual broadcasters so, unlike cable for example, there is no need to force this to relieve congestion. So allow people who think they can make a profit transmitting an analog signal to continue doing so. Eventually digital will either naturally replace traditional broadcasting or digital will die off as an expensive fad.

    But of course governments can never allow a market to function without their interference because people might get dangerous notions.

    In the end, it probably is a fight over spectrum as much as government meddling. Digital would allow double the number of streams in a fraction of the spectrum and if one were to look there is almost certainly someone waiting in the wings to buy up the 'unused' spectrum after analog radio is switched off. Follow the money, always.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by rondon on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:54PM

      by rondon (5167) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @04:54PM (#176147)

      But isn't this the best case scenario for government?

      1) A precious national resource is being used inefficiently for the benefit of a few.
      2) The government requires those few to upgrade their systems in order to make better, more efficient use of the resource.
      2a) The few, who have monopoly control (likely through the broadcasters coalition or some such) would never be pushed by the market to implement this change, because the resource they are using is not subject to a free market where it can be bought and sold as a commodity.
      3) The country benefits from having its resources used most efficiently.

      This entire exercise in Norway cannot be ruled by the free market, because the resource is part of the "commons" owned by everyone. Its use must be regulated to avoid the tragedy of the commons.

      • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:09PM

        by jmorris (4844) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:09PM (#176155)

        Ok, that is a valid point. On the other hand if the broadcasters on analog are still profitable it is because the listeners (i.e. the citizens) are still using the analog equipment too. If government is merely a creature of the People and not an entity pursuing goals of its own (as progressives believe) then if enough citizens are still using the shared resource the original spectrum assignment probably makes sense.

        It is a balance, if we want efficient spectrum use we have to keep assignments stable enough to encourage widespread adoption. If people become concerned that valuable investment in both transmitters and receivers (remember that many are integrated in large investments such as automobiles) will be obsoleted anytime some new tech gets some big money investors behind it we can end up with nobody adopting from that fear.

        Also, I forgot one other major factor in the story. Here in the U.S., and likely there since these trends are global, digital radio adoption rates are low because the government standardized it by granting a sole source monopoly to one vendor of both transmitters and receivers, although for receivers I think it is just a single source of silicon and others can in theory buy them and integrate them into equipment. And that sole source demands per minute/stream royalties on the transmitters so broadcasters can't just take their existing station and throw up a digital stream in parallel along with several alternate streams and see if the audience will buy the receivers and start listening to the new choices, they have to pay up front for each additional digital stream.

        In Europe that problem might not be as bad since digital has been operating there longer and the patents might be expired by now. But with the pressure to force adoption it would be worth following that money trail to see if it is part of the story.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:34PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:34PM (#176168)

          If people become concerned that valuable investment in both transmitters and receivers (remember that many are integrated in large investments such as automobiles) will be obsoleted anytime some new tech gets some big money investors behind it we can end up with nobody adopting from that fear.

          Spot on. Unless and until a digital standard has either been used unchanged for 10 years, or has had only backward-compatible changes during that time, I'm not going to buy it.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:35PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:35PM (#176170)

          because the government standardized it by granting a sole source monopoly to one vendor of both transmitters and receivers

          Yes google around for "HD Radio(TM)" and ibiquity corporation in the USA, and DAB for pretty much the rest of the world.

          DAB has its own unique problems, being so old it predates mp3, so logically an incompatible / semicompatible DAB+ has been released.

          DAB is 100% free open and royalty free, and unsurprisingly everything ibiquity touches involves paying substantial licensing fees, including for receivers. They're pretty hungry for money considering how little they do compared to their DAB "competitors" who are free. Its pretty much a microsoft vs linux story.

          ibiquity was pushing for all cell phones to have a FCC required broadcast radio in them awhile back. Because smartphone users listen to so much AM radio, of course, now that they have streaming internet usage, LOL.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:24PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:24PM (#176164)

        The question is whether it is indeed enough of an advantage that the cost is justified. The cost is that all FM receivers will turn into useless junk. For stationary, you'll probably be able to buy an extra box, like with TV, to add DAB reception, but for non-stationary ones that's not an option.

        Case in point, I've got 1 TV, but 5 FM radios (only counting those I use regularly). And I don't even have a car radio. Of those radios, only one has an input for external signals, and three are designed to be portable, making them an inappropriate target for an extension box anyway.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:34PM

        by kaszz (4211) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:34PM (#176194) Journal

        It's usually all about mobile operators wanting to occupy more radio spectrum..
        Guess who will buy the new spectrum that becomes "free".

        (hint: it's not citizens radio or amateur radio)

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:55PM

        by frojack (1554) on Tuesday April 28 2015, @06:55PM (#176204) Journal

        You forget that radio frequencies are internationally agreed upon. You can not suddenly decide to start using these frequencies for something else.
        The government proposal was for its OWN radio service, where they can simply stop broadcasting the analog portion, while still retaining the digital portion.
        There probably isn't any coalation of broadcasters, because the debate is about state run radio, and the order only affects state run radio.
        There is no efficiency to be gained, and no way to measure any efficiency even if you postulate it, because as I say, you can't simply start reassigning these vacated frequencies.
        There may be an efficiency in transmitter power, but collapsing a wide analog bandwidth to a narrow digital one.

        A country of Norway's size can't possibly have enough demand for FM radio that would require more stations. There really is no contention for this bandwidth.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 2) by gidds on Wednesday April 29 2015, @01:13PM

      by gidds (589) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @01:13PM (#176583)

      How can I put this in a way which the average Soylentil will understand?  Ah, I know:

      If Linux is truly better in every way then manufacturers will adopt it on their own as will users.

      I hope that illustrates my point :-)

      Unfortunately, the better option doesn't always win, for all sorts of reasons.

      --
      [sig redacted]
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by maxim on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:25PM

    by maxim (2543) <maximlevitsky@gmail.com> on Tuesday April 28 2015, @05:25PM (#176166)

    Digital is better that analog in any way. In any way except one little thing that makes me often miss the good old days of analog stuff.

    The analog way of transmitting data cannot be practically encrypted

    (Yes, I know that it is possible, and was done during the WW wars but its hard, and usually easy to crack. I know that even analog pay tv schemes were done where they would disrupt sync pulses to make it unwatchable. but still all of this was easy enough to crack that it was not popular.)

    So in analog there is no DRM.
    Now, once the radios switch to DAB in few years radio will all be encrypted just like DVB-T often is even though its free to air.

    To be honest I still miss the good old noisy analog cable that I could easily capture with TV card, record, and do whatever I want.
    Today we have stupid, bulky, having idiot interface set top boxes that receive stock DVB-C signal that can also be captured with DVB-C card except that its encrypted.
    I don't have TV at home for this reason.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Fauxlosopher on Wednesday April 29 2015, @02:25AM

      by Fauxlosopher (4804) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @02:25AM (#176421) Journal

      Digital is better that analog in any way. ... except ... The analog way of transmitting data cannot be practically encrypted

      Analog is better than digital in at least two areas, then. Analog transmissions degrade much more gracefully than digital. A fuzzy or hissing analog transmission could very well be completely capable of perfect data transmission, whereas in the same circumstances a digital transmission would be completely inoperable. Cell phone calls and over-the-air television are two examples of this.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by GDX on Wednesday April 29 2015, @03:43AM

        by GDX (1950) on Wednesday April 29 2015, @03:43AM (#176452)

        Also there is other advantage, simplicity to build a transmitter or receiver, the simplest receiver is the crystal radio, mostly associate with the AM modulation but they are also designs for FM modulation (http://solomonsmusic.net/FM_CrystalRadio.html), also the transmitters aren't that complex as a +1wat FM transmitter can be build with no more than 20 components, same for AM regardless of the frequency.

        Even if 1wat sound flimsy is possible to make contacts of more than 100km with the right antenna and in a suitable band without difficulty, one contact record that I know was using 5w 27Mhz AM with a distance of more than 2000km and is not that impressive compared to CW or SSB records.