Norway Will Switch Off FM Radio In 2017

New submitter titten writes The Norwegian Ministry of Culture has announced that the transition to DAB will be completed in 2017. This means that Norway, as the first country in the world to do so, has decided to switch off the FM network. Norway began the transition to DAB in 1995. In recent years two national and several local DAB-networks has been established. 56 per cent of radio listeners use digital radio every day. 55 per cent of households have at least one DAB radio, according to Digitalradio survey by TNS Gallup, continuously measuring the Norwegian`s digital radio habits.

Comments

About half

[Anonymous Coward]

So in other words they're going to cause problems for nearly half the households?

Re:About half

[kimvette]

Even bigger problem is cars where you cannot replace the head unit without disrupting the CAN bus or losing some functionality (like turn indicator reminders, warning tones, etc.)

Re:About half

[kyrsjo]

Rather the opposite - nice cars (or anything newer than 10-15 years) has integrated headunits, which is basically what kimvette says. On old/simple cars, the radio was just a radio, sitting in a DIN socket.

However, there are aftermarket solutions, some nicer than other. And of course, the nice solutions are krkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkrkr...

Re:About half

[Anonymous Coward]

I foresaw this from the digital TV switch. When we'd have a tornado warning in the analog days, I could turn on our television as loud as I could(to allow others in the area to be alerted if they weren't already) and we could go to the basement and listen to see where it was and if it was safe to come out. Today even though I live less than 3 miles from the very same transmitter, thanks to RF ghosting, bad weather means absolutely ZERO reception. The same will happen with radio to many others. In the event of a disaster, you will be utterly fucked. I get that digital looks and sounds better for the most part but I'm ALL about dual compatibility just in case.

Re:About half

[ultranova]

Meh. Didn't we hear the same argument when color TV was introduced? Or CDs, Digital TV, Digital cameras, Fly by wire, the Internet etc etc every other technology implementation ever?

Cassettes and analog cameras weren't banned. They simply fell out of favor because CDs and digital cameras were way superior as far as the end user was concerned. By contrast, digital tv and digital radio don't benefit the end user, they'll simply let parts of the spectrum be auctioned off; so they require legislation to force the end users to pay the costs for the transition so someone else can profit.

Re: About half

[Anonymous Coward]

Good news! They're going to turn off those broadcasts!

Less accessible

[sevenisloud]

One of the things about FM radio is it's so easily accessible - you can (in the UK at least) buy a rubbish FM radio from a pound shop - it might not be great of course, but it makes it a medium practically everyone can enjoy. DAB is comparatively quite expensive.

Re:DAB or DAB+?

[brambus]

I think many stations in the UK are using MP2 at 128kbps for stereo, which is just atrocious. MP2 should definitely not be used below 192kbps, in which case it'll definitely be better than even FM using 100kHz spacing.

Re:So much for long distance Listening

[dryeo]

You get best possible* image with DTV where you would get unwatchable static-covered picture.

The problem with the switch to digital TV was all the channels moved into the UHF band which does not carry as far. Here I used to get ch. 2 and 6 clear and a couple of other ones were sometimes watchable, after the switch to digital we don't get any channels. Being 30 miles outside of one of the biggest cities in Canada means no other options, satellite blocked by hills and trees, no cable, no cell coverage and with the privatized phone system 3 9's means that every 9 days the phone is out for 9 hours (18 hours last time), usually due to cable theft.
FM radio is still good but I'm sure if it switched to digital that would also be gone. This raises the question about Norway and how good the DAB coverage is compared to FM

Re:So much for long distance Listening

[Kjella]

TETRA or P25 on a power for power basis with older analogue equipment works well over 3 times the distance where analogue becomes unintelligible.

Outside. I know particularly the firefighters have complained about poorer coverage inside buildings, which is usually where their life-saving work is done. Details...

Re:not in the usa

[Jack Griffin]

Yeah but neither did the metric system, public health or regulation of dangerous weapons. The US is hardly the benchmark for what is considered a good idea or not.

Re:So much for long distance Listening

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It also doesn't help that digital transitions are when broadcasters usually give in to the temptation to squeeze in a bunch of extra channels. When they get really greedy, the results are so bandwidth starved that they sound like horribly compressed crap(because they are) even under ideal circumstances. Even if they don't push it that hard, they haven't typically been very conservative about building in a lot of margin for degradation.