Not useful at all.
Telcos are not even interested in VHF Band III let alone FM as the antennas in mobiles phones would need to be much larger.
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And the bandwidth of each channel is useless for data transfer, speeds would be too slow as you can’t pass much data in narrow bandwidths.
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There’s not really an answer. It can’t be purchased by anyone other than an existing commercial broadcaster and there’s been no sales of spectrum since the original excess capacity auctions in 2009 (except for when AM/FM licences have been traded, in which case the same DAB+ spectrum attached to them has also transferred).
The operating costs alone, being the cost to license holders charged by the DAB+ JV companies to cover site costs, power, maintenance etc is $4-5k per quarter per 32kbits, so to cover that alone is nearly $20k per year per 32kbits.
I was told years ago that ARN had been approached by an interested party and they were asking for approx $1,000 per year per kbit. Honestly I think that is grossly under valued as a $10k profit for the broadcaster wouldn’t even cover the time and effort it would take to liaise with the external party, maintain links and troubleshoot problems when they occur.
That said, there’s no real market for this. The broadcasters have limited spectrum which they are overfilling with their own services so outside of a couple of arrangements like Niche Radio and previously Kinderling, there’s nothing to compare to. For most license holders, there would be no price as it’s not available for lease.
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True, but I would still have thought places like Newcastle, Central Coast, Sunshine Coast, Geelong and Wollongong are sufficiently “metro” to make a call now on going with DAB+
They need to open it up to new entrants.
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You’re talking about benefit to the government and other industry. By transitioning TV to digital, the government could auction off spectrum to mobile carriers so the carriers got more spectrum while the government got money. The broadcasters kept the same amount of spectrum even if it was on a different frequency.
With a complete transition to digital radio only, the government would gain nothing. The broadcasters might have lower operating costs (I’m not saying that they would, just that they might).
However there could be benefits to a partial transition to DAB+ only. For example, if SBS radio became digital only in the mainland state capitals and Canberra, the government could raise money by auctioning off an FM frequency to a commercial AM broadcaster. They could also save on operating costs. In Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, they could save even more by not having to operate an AM station.
On the other hand, if the mainland capital cities high powered stations transitioned to DAB+ only (with the possible exception of emergency broadcasters), the freed up FM spectrum could be reused, e.g. to move more regional AM station to FM, move capital city open narrowcasters to FM, etc. There would also be lower costs to broadcasters.
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They have to
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If you wanna get Regional Australia Interested in Launching DRM, Start a Petition to the ACMA.
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Interesting idea. I think the government really need to look outside the box at something like this.
For all the industry talking down the value of commercial radio I bet if you auctioned off 98.1 (SBS) in Brisbane you’d get $40M +
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SBS in Brissy is 93.3, but still… But i don’t know that you’d get $40m these days… I don’t think commercial FM music stations make as much money as they used to with podcasts and streaming now a popular option.
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Ah yes, getting mixed up with 4EB on 98.1
Still reckon you’d get $40M for an FM station in Brisbane. That’s around half of what 96FM sold for in 2014.
While I don’t believe the sale price for Hot Tomato was disclosed it was reportedly $30M in 2018. That’s in a market of 700,000 as opposed to Brisbane’s 2.6M people. GC has 3 commercial FM’s and a new one would make 5 for Brisbane, so I think $40M could even be conservative.
This is a few years old now but:
Really don’t think podcasts and streaming are making that much impact yet to the bottom line of the metro FM stations - despite the networks trying to spin that story to keep the status quo. Ad revenue in the major metros isn’t in decline.
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I like that there’s basically no way to buy your way onto DAB+ - but ARN were able to spend money in Melbourne, buy 64kbps on 9A and have left it unused for over a decade now, or Brisbane that has 128kbps of unauctioned bandwidth that will seemingly go forever unused, because there’s no mechanism to use it.
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exactly. I’d like to see “use it or lose it” - this is a public resource and should be used, either by new stations by existing broadcasters, upping the bitrate on existing stations or selling off to new entrants. if the 3rd option was on the table, bit rates would jump within the hour
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Worlddab has published a new book about establishing DAB+ radio around the world. You can read the book on the link below.
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Good luck with that.
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In the new M4-M8 tunnels the DAB reception is a bit spotty. Never fully drops out but consistently dips to 2 bars.
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Do all of the tunnels in Sydney have DAB? As far as I know none do in Brisbane.
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Only the M4, M8 and Northconnex.
Can’t remember if the M5 and Harbour Tunnel have it yet.
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M5 has no DAB
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Harbour Tunnel doesn’t have it.
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That’s surprising the Clem 7 and Airport link tunnels don’t have DAB. What a missed opportunity.
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