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"This is an expensive and inefficient use of spectrum"
Joan, it would be premature for you to comment that its "expensive" when pricing hasn't been released for this product by any telco in Australia.
As for "inefficient" having a regional DAB+ Mux in some areas that will less then 30% full is what I call grossly inefficient.
"Similar studies in Europe showed mobile networks would not come close to being able to support radio listening which is why Europe is moving to DAB+"
You are confusing unicast or traditional streaming to LTE-B which is a 1 to many multicast technology when saying that mobile networks would not come close to being able to support radio listening. It would not matter if 1 or 100,000 are listening because thats what the technology is all about.
As far as considerable mobile network capacity, each base station has around 300mbits capacity so a few 64k streams is not going to impact the telco in the slightest. also remember if nobody has requested to listen on that base station it does not get broadcast. once again I think you are confusing unicast with multicast delivery mechanisms.
As far as distances in regional areas are concerned, the Telcos network already blow predicted DAB+ coverage models out of the water. not to mention better in building reception.
"Since the Coutts study there have been additional recent technical articles that also describe the limited or specific use of eMBMS for specific events only ie sport, concerts etc and not for wide area broadcasting."
You are correct in saying that it has only been used in sporting and concerts, but these were done as tests to prove the technology however The US are looking to this product because of the inherited problems with IBOC especially with regard to AM IBOC. This technology is going to be offered for TV and radio broadcasters for wide area broadcasting in Australia.
"Without DAB+ digital radio in regional Australia, broadcasters and listeners will be significantly disadvantaged compared to metropolitan broadcasters."
Without considering and embracing other technologies like LTE-B and even DRM+ in regional Australia, Broadcasters and Listeners will be significantly disadvantaged end of story.
Said it before, I'll say it again. So long as the choice is restricted to juke-box style radio, most will seek choices online. Data plans are bigger and cheaper. Sure there are people without smartphones, but increasingly small in number. What is a young person most likely to have a) a phone or b) a radio?
I'm sure most DAB listeners in Oz are using it to get better reception from AM channels - but we can't tell, cos those figures are never published.
The inefficient use of spectrum argument is a bit pointless. It's choice that count. When I switch on my Spotify feed I don't think that it's an inefficient use of spectrum and, out of guilt, switch to MMM.