A proposed technical upgrade to DAB radio broadcasts will not be introduced into the UK for fear they will upset the developing digital radio market.
AAC audio encoding replaces existing DAB MPEG2 encoding in ‘DAB+’ to triple compression efficiency - allowing more stations or better quality.
The
UK has one of the best developed DAB markets, however few if any DAB radios here are compatible with DAB+.
“We are not saying never to DAB+, but what we are saying is not currently,” an Ofcom spokeswoman told
EW. “If we were to adopt the MPEG4 [AAC] standard we would have a severe effect on existing users.”
The UK is ahead because the BBC kick-started its market when it started DAB broadcasts 12 years ago. “We have no plans to move over to DAB+ at all,” a BBC spokeswoman told
EW.
Most other European countries have made no attempt to promote DAB, but are waking up to the greater capacity offered by DAB+. Australia is one country which has said it will
upgrade to DAB+.French industry Minister François Loos recently announced that digital radio in France is likely to include DAB+.
UK company Pure makes DAB receivers for all of Europe. “We will have DAB+ compatible radios later this year or early next,” said David Harold at Pure.
Pure uses chipsets from Frontier Silicon. Rival UK DAB chipset-maker RadioScape announced DAB+ compatible products last week.
