LONDON�In the pages of DRU we cover a lot of news about DAB and DAB+.� It�s important to know that aside from DAB, and HD Radio, there is another technology for digital radio ��DRM.� The reality is that this technology is experiencing headwinds in its deployment � at least in Europe and Brazil.�
From arecent post in DRM news, we have this from Marcelo Goedert.� (Italics are mine.)
�In 2012, with the radio sector in eclipse, due mainly to the migration of advertising to the internet, the Ministry of Communications opened a public call for digital radio systems to apply for adoption in Brazil. At the time, in addition to iBiquity or the HD system, Digital Radio Mondiale came on the scene. DRM is an open system, being promoted by a non-profit international consortium supported by entities that believe in the standard and in open radio. Both systems are tested. The Ministry of Communications creates a Council to carry out a technical, technology and business model assessment. It gets complicated. The systems are too different:DRM is state of the art and uses half of the spectrum size, but the HD is already deployed in the U.S. and has receivers on the market; DRM is an open system and its development depends also on the local industry. On the other hand HD brings everything prefabricated. DRM would depend on investments in the sector in Brazil. For HD everything is ready made, you only have to pay. No decision on the matter is taken.�
Joachim Lehnert describes a similar situation in Germany inanother post from DRM news.
�The DRM Platform chairman, Joachim Lehnert, informed the group that DRM is not being considered by the DAB launch group in Germany at the moment. The German Media Authorities have published a report which stresses that DRM+ is, in fact, the best and most appropriate system to broadcast local and regional digital radio. But the report also states that DRM+ is not ready yet for the market due to the lack of multi-standard radios with DRM+ reception. Therefore, for the time being, only DAB+ will be discussed in the national committees, especially in the Digitalradio Board of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure (BMVI) that gives the timeline for the digital radio switch over � and all this despite the conclusion of the paper that DAB+ cannot provide the digital equivalent of the local and regional FM radio landscape.�
