Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems G Series 2nd Anniversary

Further information from around the world on the future of DAB....

Sweden's Minister for Culture has turned down Swedish Radio's request for additional investment for DAB, citing the format as being too expensive. So, Finland has switched off DAB, the five largest French radio broadcasters have all rejected using DAB because it is outdated and inefficient (originally it was just the four largest radio broadcasters, but the fifth-largest is participating in a trial of digital radio via DVB-H now as well), the Australian minister for communications said it would be "irresponsible" to use DAB because it is out-of-date and will soon be replaced by a new DAB version 2 standard and Canada have effectively sidelined DAB to being a minor system after they licensed two satellite digital radio systems.

It's not looking very good for the DAB system. It is for good reason that countries are turning their back on it; the system is now 15 years old and is outclassed by the modern digital broadcasting systems that can carry digital radio, such as DVB-H, DRM+ and DMB, as well as satellite digital radio and the US-based MediaFLO system.

The WorldDAB Forum needs to release the DAB version 2 standards as soon as possible, because otherwise more and more countries will turn their backs on the DAB system altogether, and if it's not careful WorldDAB will have to be renamed something along the lines of the "UK & Denmark DAB Forum".

What about an alternative.....

A Director-General of Radio Satellite Viatis, which is a subsidiary of satellite digital radio company WorldSpace, has said that the European satellite digital radio (ESDR) system could be launched as early as late-2007.

The system plans to provide about 50 advert-free digital radio stations to language-specific regions, i.e. 50 stations in English targeted at the UK and Ireland, and 50 stations in German to German-speaking companies, and so on.

The system will be modelled on the highly successful satellite digital radio systems in the US, which are expected to have 9 million subscribers by the end of 2005.

Surely all this is enough reason for Meridian to produce a card-based 'radio' tuner that takes advantage of such emerging media formats.