During an open house discussion, on January 8, radio broadcasters urged the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to adopt a single open standard technology for digital radio broadcasting, given its cost-effectiveness.
Industry stakeholders further noted that a technology like Digital Radio Mondiale (DRM) will foster innovation and competition, thus eliminating the monopoly.
The discussion was organised by TRAI on the consultation paper ‘Formulating a Digital Radio Broadcast Policy’ (released on September 30 last year). TRAI received 43 comments and 13 counter comments. Present during the discussion was Anil Kumar Lahoti, Chairman, TRAI and Atul Kumar Chaudhary, Secretary, TRAI.
Highlighting how profitability is the real challenge for radio broadcasters, Uday Chawla, Secretary General, Association of Radio Operators for India, urged technology providers to be proactive in creating the digital ecosystem, have an alliance with the mobile manufacturers and car manufacturers, and bring down the costs, for the digital radio adoption.
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Col Dheeraj Chandola, Senior Consultant Communication and IT, National Disaster Management Authority of India, recommended TRAI to mandate the inclusion of hardware/software for integrating digital transmitters with the National CAP platform for dissemination of Alerts. This functionality must be exploited in the national interest of saving lives and property.
Single Technology Adoption
A single FM digital radio technology for the entire country is a must, stakeholders said in unison.
“The Indian FM radio is a huge monolithic ecosphere. It cannot work with diverse technologies and fragmented markets that would create havoc if we have more than one Indian digital radio standards,” said media specialist Sharad Sadhu.
He shared that the single technology selection should be based on powerful indoor mobile reception, and technology that should take a minimum amount of space for a given package of services in the spectrum.
The technology should be selected in such a manner that it should fit into the existing FM channel.
Matthew Phillips, Product Director, CML Microcircuits (UK) suggested that it is in India’s best interests to adopt a single standard for digital broadcasting in India, and the reason for that is simply to allow the maximum opportunity for a competitive market to develop.
“If there is confusion in the market in the minds of customers and indeed in the minds of broadcasters, this will lead to a slow development of the market.
But it’s helpful if customers, broadcasters and all stakeholders have a clear understanding about which technical standard will be adopted so that products can then be made for that one standard in an unequivocal and unconfusing manner,” he remarked.
Dr. Waal Albert, Head of Hardware Development, RFmondial GmbH (Germany) too recommended a single radio system is more the advantageous solution. It’s significantly more cost-effective with lower installation and maintenance expenses.
Single technology will allow for better resource utilisation, and ensures considerably less regulatory effort and feasible infrastructure.
DRM versus HD Radio
DRM is considered a more open and spectrum-efficient digital radio technology compared to HD Radio (primarily used in the US). DRM offers better compatibility across various frequency bands like AM and FM, while HD Radio is mainly focused on the FM band and requires a larger bandwidth to operate effectively.
Yogendra Pal, Hon’ble Chair – India Chapter, DRM Consortium, suggested TRAI that for a big country like India where we have to use all frequency bands like mediumwave, shortwave and FM band, DRM is the only standard that works in all three bands.
Batting for the DRM technology, Rajith Nair, Chief Executive Officer, Inntot Technologies, said, “SDR-based DRM receiver solutions have been deployed in more than 1 million car units in India, across 13 car models and 45 variants; it is easily upgradable.
“A single open standard is preferred for a cost sensitive market like India; also there is no license fee involved in using DRM. The open nature of the standard will foster innovation and also competition among the solution providers, thus eliminating the monopoly.”
Differentiating DRM from HD radio, Albert added that DRM offers an outstanding flexibility and spectrum planning compared to HD radio.
“The DRM standards can be flexibly implemented in the existing FM broadcasting landscapes. There are no system-related restrictions. The additional DRM data services such as emergency warning and others further enhance the system,” said Albert.
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Other stakeholders including Ted Laverty, VP, Global Standards, Xperi, Belfast, United Kingdom supported HD radio transmission as a single technology provider.
Ramashish Ray, CEO, Centre of Excellence, MeitY, also urged for HD radio technology from a cost and scalability angle.
Radio On Mobile
Industry stakeholders believe that the success of digital radio depends on its mass reach and penetration which is only possible via radio on mobile phones.
Prashant Ramdas, Legal Head, Entertainment Network India Limited (Mirchi) told TRAI that the success of digital radio depends on how much it penetrates and is available to the larger population in India.
According to him, the best way to do that is through the mobile phones, because the car owning population has a limited accessibility to FM radio, and that too during the drive time.
“It is essential that all the mobile handsets especially the smartphones are equipped with reception of digital technology as well as FM transmission. Only then this can be scalable and are economically viable for anyone,” he added.
Need For Market Forces Consideration
Select stakeholders also urged TRAI to consider market forces concerning technology adoption for radio digital broadcasting.
“To select the technology, market forces must be considered as the most significant determinant, at least for the initial phase, since there could be significant cost implications including specialised components for enabling digital radio or mobile devices,” highlighted Aseem Khanna, Lead – Public Policy, vivo Mobile India.
“Mobile devices are really cramped and therefore, the inclusion of any new or specialised components for digital radio would require significant redesigning efforts which might impact the significant production scales that we have achieved recently,” he added.