Digital Radio:

1

• Digital Radio
• Possibilities, Promises and Planning
• Murray Delahoy
• Principal Engineer
• Broadcast Spectrum Strategy

2
Digital Radio

• Overview
• Introduction, systems and key technologies
• Survey of systems
• T-DAB, HD-Radio, DRM, Satellite
• Australian activities
• Resources, questions

3
Digital Radio

• What is Digital Radio?
• terrestrial
• - T-DAB, DRM, HD-Radio, DRM, T-DMB, DVB-H
• satellite
• - Worldspace, S-DMB, Sirius, XM-Radio
  
• Why are we interested?

4
Digital Radio

• Key technologies
• perceptual audio coding
• Multi-level modulation
• COFDM
• SFN

5
Some recent international developments
Digital Radio

• T-DAB
• Considerable take-up of T-DAB in UK (3.1
  million units)
• VHF Band III receiver prices falling (35)
• Other European, Canada and Asian countries have
  operating T-DAB services
• But take-up is less impressive elsewhere
• Germany is re-purposing its L-Band DAB network
  for T-DMB
• Korean T-DMB is achieving rapid early growth (1
  million units)
• HD Radio (formerly known as IBOC or IBAC)
• HD Radio standard well accepted in US
• but so far only about 10 broadcasters are
  transmitting
• consumer take up slow but seems to be gradually
  increasing
• few receivers in the market (cheapest approx
  US100)
• DRM and DRM (and no it isnt Digital Rights
  Management!)
• AM/FM/DAB/DRM LW/MW/SW/VHF Band III/L Band
• 26 MHz short wave band for local broadcasting ??
• DRM extension to 54-72 or 88-108 MHz bands
• consumer radios now available (299)

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Digital Radio

• HD-Radio
• proprietary system developed by iBiquity
• being promoted by US terrestrial radio
  broadcasters
• some non-US countries are broadcasting Brazil,
  France, Philipines
• Modulation is COFDM
• MPEG-4 Perceptual Audio Coding
• AM and FM versions
• FM version 96 kbit/s
• AM version 36 kbit/s
• Digital blending
• Provides extra channel and/or data capacity
• Sharing issues
• 400 KHz FM spacing might be problematic
• AM spacing issues

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Digital Radio

• HD-Radio example of FM spectrum usage

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Digital Radio

• HD-Radio example of AM spectrum usage

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Digital Radio

• T- DAB what is it?
• 1.536 MHz spectrum blocks support approx. 1.2
  Mbit/s
• MPEG-2 audio coding can provide 9x128kbit/s FM
  radio streams
• Can also carry data services
• Moves to allow improved audio coding
• Mobile video is possible
• T-DMB 1 or 2 reasonable small screen video
  channels
• Signals must be multiplexed together
• at point of transmission or somewhere else?
• Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing
  (COFDM)
• 1536 1 kHz carriers
• By not transmitting during guard interval
  multipath and co-channel interference from other
  transmitters in a network can be rejected
• Single Frequency Network (SFN) concept

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Digital Radio

• T-DAB planning issues
• Spectrum availability
• VHF Band III (174-230 MHz or perhaps 240 MHz)
• sharing with TV needs to be considered
• L Band (1452-1492 MHz)
• Sharing issues
• terrestrial fixed links, P-MP, Aeronautical
  Telemetry and DVB-H ?
• satellite S-DAB 1467-1492 MHz (and possible
  terrestrial repeaters)
• Suitability of bands
• Building penetration losses
• Cost of L-Band deployments
• antenna performance

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Digital Radio

• DRM and DRM
• DRM
• compatible with medium and short wave broadcast
  spectrum
• 8-20 kbit/s in a 9 kHz AM channel
• MPEG-4 audio coding - comparable to FM
  quality at 20 kbit/s
• COFDM with QPSK/16-QAM/64-QAM
• doesnt require multiplexing of different
  program streams
• no significant receiver base yet
• DRM
• 50 or 100 kHz channels - near CD quality
  audio
• bands up to 108 MHz
• expected to be developed by 2009

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Digital Radio

• DRM and DRM

13
Digital Radio

• Satellite
• US systems in 2320-2345 MHz band
• Sirius (3 NGSO satellites terrestrial
  repeaters)
• XM-Radio (2 GSO terrestrial repeaters)
• car radios are the major market
• est. subscriber numbers Sirius 6.2 million,
  XM-Radio 8.5 million
• Under RR 5.393 only US, Mexico and India can
  access 2310-2360 MHz for BSS(S) and complementary
  terrestrial repeaters
• Worldspace 1467-1492 MHz
• operating satellites Asiaspace, Afrispace
• Asian beams cover SE Asia, India, NE Asia

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Digital Radio

• Worldspace coverage

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Digital Radio

• Australian activities
• Government policy statements October 2005,
  April 2006
• Staged approach
• Commence in state capital cities 1 January 2009
• T-DAB in VHF Band III (174-230 MHz) L-Band
  (1452-1492 MHz)
• Capacity for national, commercial and some wide
  area community services
• Regional areas, other community and other radio
  services to be considered later
• Watching brief on other technologies
  especially to address needs of regional areas
• Provision for future satellite use in L-Band

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Digital Radio

• More information
• HD-Radio http//www.ibiquity.com/hd_radio
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H
  D_Radio
• T-DAB www.worlddab.org
• ETSI EN 300 401 v.1.3.3
• EBU BPN003 Technical Bases
  for T-DAB Network Planning
• DRM www.drm.org
• http//www.drm.org/broadcast
  manual/broadcastermanual.php
• http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki
  /Digital_Radio_Mondiale
• ACMA www.acma.gov.au

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Digital Radio

• Thank you
• Questions ?