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Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

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Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#181

Post by scholia »

Already__Taken wrote: post #179
geff82 wrote: post #176

OK, so you switch off a completely fine technology with billions invested, rendering useless multi-millions of fine working radios. For what? I think this will be the death blow to radio. People will not go DAB if not absolutely needed, they will essentially try to go "internet" directly and thereby eliminating classic "radio". Maybe you'll use the DAB in your car sometimes, but I can't imagine it will happen that yo…

Wouldn't we be better using this spectrum for even more data to stream anything, including DAB?

FM is amazingly cheap, and green. You can reach millions of listeners with high quality sound. In many cases, you can reach tens of millions for exactly the same cost. Until you need another mast, the extra cost per user is $0.

Smartphone chips already include FM so there's no extra cost to reaching mobile users, with no extra bandwidth consumption. (Not FM's fault if some smartphone makers don't use the FM capabilities and make users consume expensive and limited cellular spectrum instead.)

The drawbacks with FM are (1) the limited number of stations and (2) users can't choose their own music. That's why there's a market for different services.

However, there's still a market for live radio: it's free and has billions of listeners. It's also a very efficient way of handling phone-ins and live commentaries on sports events, among other things.

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#182

Post by wodenokoto »

winter_blue wrote: post #141
krkoch wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because the infrastructure for FM is quite expensive to run. Because of all the fjords and valleys, you need many weak transmitters to avoid reflections. Also, because it's FM, they can't overlap in frequency. With DAB, two time-delayed signals (either reflections or multiple towers transmitting the same data-fountain) will enhance the signal. This means that you can have fewer towers.

> It's because the infrastructure for FM is quite expensive to run. Won't the free market decide if it's too expensive to run? Or is even radio run by the state in Norway? Otherwise, why prohibit private companies from licensing & broadcasting FM radio? I mean the free market would decide stop to broadcasting when it's not profitable for them anymore. Or is everything state-run in Norway? When I read "one member of t…

> Or is even radio run by the state in Norway?

As a Scandinavian, that is kinda fun to read. Of course Radio is state run. I still get surprised when I hear commercials on the privately owned stations. Private radio stations pretty much became a thing after I grew up and stopped listening to Radio.

When I was a kid, there were maybe one commercial station and they didn't air in my city. Commercial TV-station were still mostly broadcasting from England, due to the former state monopoly.

To many Scandinavians this is the most natural thing in the world.

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#183

Post by semi-extrinsic »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #136
kagamine wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sort of just what I said. I did state "reportedly" and not provide any sources. I don't think I was being unfair to the EV market. However, buying a new car and junking the old one has to be less energy efficient than owning an old car and trying to use it less while utilizing public transport. Public transport is something I could have mentioned in my original post as it is not prioritized enough here in Norway and…

Anti-environmental conspiracy theories (the evil electric car lobby are ruining the business of the nice oil providers for no good reason) aren't really any more useful than environmental conspiracy theories and biases ("chemicals" are bad, "natural" means good etc). EVs are better for the environment, both local and global, than ICE cars. That's true on average and even truer for Norway with its cleaner grid. Biodie…

> things that can't be easily electrified, like flying craft

Funfact about airplanes: they can pretty easily be converted to run on liquid hydrogen. There was a big Airbus-led research project on this some years back. IIRC they found overall efficiency (when accounting for larger fuel volume etc. etc.) was ~4% lower than normal aircraft.

Not to mention that Tupolev actually built and flew a full-scale proof of concept liquid H2 airliner in the late 80's, the TU-155; sadly yet another cool project that died with the Soviet Union.

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#184

Post by scholia »

greglindahl wrote: post #7
userbinator wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet FM still can't beat AM for simplicity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_radio

Don't worry, there's a new digital standard for AM radio too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HD_Radio#AM

The new digital standard for radio is DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale). Given a choice, nobody would adopt 1990s-style DAB today. Problem is that countries are so deep in failing DAB systems that they don't have the will or the guts to change. It would involve a lot of humility and a huge loss of face.

Sobering thought for the day: DAB was developed at the same time as the World-Wide Web.

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#185

Post by geff82 »

Already__Taken wrote: post #179
geff82 wrote: post #176

OK, so you switch off a completely fine technology with billions invested, rendering useless multi-millions of fine working radios. For what? I think this will be the death blow to radio. People will not go DAB if not absolutely needed, they will essentially try to go "internet" directly and thereby eliminating classic "radio". Maybe you'll use the DAB in your car sometimes, but I can't imagine it will happen that yo…

Wouldn't we be better using this spectrum for even more data to stream anything, including DAB?

The spectrum is not that big and we can use it for exact the thing we use it.

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#186

Post by vidarh »

digi_owl wrote: post #175
cuchoi wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably they have State infrastructure, maybe it was never profitable for businesses to invest in FM radios in that geography. They still CAN do it, but they won't.

The infra used to be state operated, under a cooperation between NRK and Televerket (that in the 90s was turned into Telenor). In recent years NRK has transferred ownership of this to Telenor, and instead rents capacity from them. So effectively it is privately owned and operated, under a "natural" monopoly.

With the caveat that Telenor is 54% owned by the Norwegian government (as of September 2016) [1], with a further 5% owned by Folketrygdfondet (government run social security fund), and a further 0.8% by DNB Asset Management, a subsidiary of the bank DNB ASA, which is again 34% owned by the Norwegian Ministry of Trade and Industry...

[1] https://www.telenor.com/investors/share-information/major-sh...

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#187

Post by semi-extrinsic »

wodenokoto wrote: post #182
winter_blue wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's because the infrastructure for FM is quite expensive to run. Won't the free market decide if it's too expensive to run? Or is even radio run by the state in Norway? Otherwise, why prohibit private companies from licensing & broadcasting FM radio? I mean the free market would decide stop to broadcasting when it's not profitable for them anymore. Or is everything state-run in Norway? When I read "one member of t…

> Or is even radio run by the state in Norway? As a Scandinavian, that is kinda fun to read. Of course Radio is state run. I still get surprised when I hear commercials on the privately owned stations. Private radio stations pretty much became a thing after I grew up and stopped listening to Radio. When I was a kid, there were maybe one commercial station and they didn't air in my city. Commercial TV-station were sti…

> Commercial TV-station were still mostly broadcasting from England

Apart from TV2 I think they all still are? Mainly to avoid restrictions on content in commercials (Norwegian ban on online gambling commercials etc).

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#188

Post by scholia »

Aoyagi wrote: post #78
ptaipale wrote: post #24

What do we do with more channels that we can't listen? If you really need a little bit of bandwidth around 100 MHz for other use, you could cut the spectrum from FM radio and still keep it running. The place where I usually listen to radio is the car. Car radios don't have DAB receivers. They all have FM receivers. And these days most cars have radio units that are integrated to the car electronics, steering wheel co…

>The place where I usually listen to radio is the car. Car radios don't have DAB receivers. It's not like anyone was asked when digital TV was the only thing left working..

True, but you didn't have to replace your TV, just add a cheap set-top box. (And not even that if you had cable or satellite TV.)

Also, at the time, most people only had one or two TV sets.

With DAB, you have to buy a new set, and most people have multiple FM radios: typically living room/hi-fi, kitchen, bedroom alarm clock/radio, car radio, boomboxes, and FM radios in smartphones and MP3 players.

We have about a dozen FM radios at home and there is zero chance of us buying any more DAB radios than the DAB/FM/CD "kitchen radio" we already have....

The obvious option is to buy a DAB receiver that broadcasts an FM signal to all your existing radios. That's how some of the DAB "radio adaptors" for cars work.

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#189

Post by w8rbt »

mrswag wrote: post #166
w8rbt wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is only one reason. It's much more efficient. Engineers have to keep slicing things thinner and thinner to accommodate more and more people and needs. This impacts everything . Food, water, shelter, medications, transportation, communications, etc. Efficiency is king. It has to be.

FM works, and doesn't need any addition when you increase the number of listeners. I don't get it. Why throw away millions of perfectly fine radios?

Digital is more narrow and compact and allows more efficient use of the spectrum in general. More transmissions, different uses, sharing, freeing space up for other allocations, etc. All of that is resource/demand driven. More people is more demand.

Re: Norway to become first country to switch off FM radio

#190

Post by scholia »

Angostura wrote: post #152
nicky0 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful what you wish for, DAB is pretty horrible too.

In what respect? I have DAB at home and in the car in the UK and find it reliable and decent quality.

DAB sound quality can be as good as you like, but as implemented, it's generally very low. (Stations use low bit-rates to reduce costs.) On average, in fact, DAB sound quality is much lower than FM, assuming you're in a good signal area and/or have a decent FM aerial.

You also need a lot more expensive masts to provide DAB coverage. In many places where you get poor FM reception, you get "bubbling mud" or no DAB reception at all.

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