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Radio in smartphones will kill DAB

K

KB1OKL

Looks like radios in smartphones in Europe will kill DAB dead in its tracks. "Digital Radio FM Europe 2013" seems to think that DAB's time is numbered (as do most other radio professionals in Europe).

" Radio in Smartphones Will Kill DAB
The mobile phone will become the major radio listening device - but without DAB+
Today, mobile phone are with most people in the world. It is becoming the most common radio receiver also in developing countries as in India and in Africa. You are listening via the built-in FM-receiver which can be found in quite stripped down devices as well as in more advanced smartphones as Samsung S-series and Nokia Lumia - or you are listening via streaming audio on the Internet.

However, there are no mobile phones with built-in DAB-receivers on any market even not in DAB-established countries as Denmark and the UK.
The major reason is that a DAB receiver in a mobile phone will have an 8-9 times higher energy consumption than a FM receiver. This includes the Eurochip concept promoted by the EBU. Also the mobile phone antennas are not DAB capable and another antenna must be added."

Sounds like Deja Vu all over again, no? IBOC cheerleaders in this forum constantly uphold Europe as being a digital success story for radio despite the consistent signs in the radio press over there that it is dead in the water. Digital radio is not doing any better in Europe than it is here despite some government's heavy handed legislation to do away with analog radio.

whole article at:

http://digitalradioinsider.blogspot.com/2013/09/radio-in-smartphones-will-kill-dab.html
 
FM won't work in cell phones. No antenna. It might work in Europe where everything is compact compared to the US, but in major metro areas that go for miles in every direction, and parts of the metro area are 80 to 100 miles from the towers, a cell phone with no FM antenna won't pick up FM. Not the way consumers have come to expect in their car.
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
FM won't work in cell phones. No antenna. It might work in Europe where everything is compact compared to the US, but in major metro areas that go for miles in every direction, and parts of the metro area are 80 to 100 miles from the towers, a cell phone with no FM antenna won't pick up FM. Not the way consumers have come to expect in their car.
Click to expand...

The earbud wire is the antenna, just as the power cord is the antenna for tabletop FM radios.
 
DavidEduardo said:


The earbud wire is the antenna, just as the power cord is the antenna for tabletop FM radios.
Click to expand...

Yes - but an earbud is essential for a walkman, not so for a cell phone which uses bluetooth for handsfree in most new cars, and the only time somebody typically uses earbuds is for privacy. I am NOT impressed with earbud antennas anyway. Only an SRF-59 really works on an 80 mile rim shot here - conventional superhet and the station is not there. Now translate that to the LA basin where somebody is just on the other side of the mountain from the towers. NOT going to work with earbuds. I've been there. Even on a good radio like an SRF-59 it is dicey at best behind a mountain. Put those earbud antennas into a building in downtown Houston, 25 miles from the Mo City towers, it won't work. The cell phone user will be streaming instead. I'd love to have the FM chip activated. I just think that in close proximity to all that cell phone RF circuitry, some of it 2W, on the same PC board, with inadequate antennas - and you would have to literally be on top of the towers for it to work, even if the earbuds are used. I am afraid FM in a cell phone would only highlight why FM in a cell phone is a bad idea. HD FM would be ridiculous.
 
My wife has an FM tuner in her (very cheap as in POS) cell phone in Peru, If her cell phone has one I bet they all do out there. I forgot to check it out, I will in January when I go back. Lima is a very radio dense city so it would probably work OK.
 
rbrucecarter5 said:
Yes - but an earbud is essential for a walkman, not so for a cell phone which uses bluetooth for handsfree in most new cars, and the only time somebody typically uses earbuds is for privacy. .
Click to expand...

That may be true of the newer cars with bluetooth, but that is a small percentage of all cars on the road; the average car in America is over 10 years old.

And, since only about a third of radio listening is in the car, the bigger market is for at home and at work listening, where people will put the phone in the pocket or on a clip and use earbuds as they do different tasks. It's not for privacy... it's for convenience and to mask distractions.
 
KB1OKL said:
My wife has an FM tuner in her (very cheap as in POS) cell phone in Peru, If her cell phone has one I bet they all do out there. I forgot to check it out, I will in January when I go back. Lima is a very radio dense city so it would probably work OK.
Click to expand...

My two grandkids in Quito have cellphones with radios built in (FM only, of course) and they report that the reception is fine for the stations they want to listen to. Most transmitters there are on a mountain overlooking the market... not unlike LA's Mt. Wilson... and do not have immense power with 5 to 10 kw ERP being the norm. The phone radios work well even at the far edges of the market, which are each about 40 km from the sites and among very rugged terrain with big hills and small peaks.

I think cellphones with FM are quite common in the rest of the world, too. I checked with the folks I worked with in Argentina a few years back, and they all had FM enabled phones, too... and no complaint in a market that is geographically as large as New York City's metro area.
 
My previous cell phone (an HTC Incredible) had FM in it and it worked fine... at least, "well enough." I miss that feature in my current phone.
 
I got an iPhone earlier this year, and do not like. Am seriously thinking of going back to Android. I'm also a Sprint customer, and the HTC One looks nice; it's also the model leading the push for FM in smartphones. But I have yet to see Sprint actually mention this anywhere in promotional/sale materials.
 
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