[BC] HD Radio's lack of upgrade capability

[Michael Bergman]

Rich,

The problem isn't that manufacturers don't care about the industry, or that
the technology "can't" be upgraded (I've said it can), it's like a lot of
the things people have asked for here: there are issues in the way of the
apparently "easy" solution.

COST ISSUES:
Radio economics don't allow for software upgrades unless someone owns the
whole system.  I'd expect Sirius or XM to consider upgrades, perhaps, but if
the radio will cost $10 more at the factory, they'll subsidize it to keep
their current price points.

In product planning meetings, we talk a lot about cost.  Over-the-air (OTA)
upgrade radios would cost more, and I doubt the consumer will pay for them.
I can imagine the people on this list might be willing to pay extra for an
upgradeable radio, but not the general public.

BROADCAST ISSUES:
Also, who will broadcast these upgrades?  Someone here could probably come
up with a good plan, but at what point will someone actually implement it?

Since hardware makers are all responsible for their own designs, and even
chip makers are now working on their own firmware in some cases, we have
multiple broadcasters and multiple firmware implementations.  Upgrade
management would be a logistics nightmare.

LIABILITY ISSUES:
Next, who has responsibility for radios that don't upgrade properly?  We
don't want this liability.  This is a big factor--the issue of returns is
hugely important to hardware makers.  Imagine if Joe's Radio Company handed
their upgrade off to Sam's Broadcast Group, and Sam's munged it somehow.
Joe's would have the liability for the returns, without having been able to
control the process.  One might believe the upgrade could be made foolproof
and failsafe, but it would be a rare hardware maker who would be so daring
as to go with such a deal.

TECHNOLOGY ISSUES:
There are none, really.  This can be done, if we're talking about a science
experiment with the existing technology.  I think we could even do it
without iBiquity engineering involved, say, a broadcaster, an equipment
maker and working together, using iBiquity's datacasting capability and
modifying the hardware--it really isn't a limitation of IBOC.  However,
there needs to be a business case that deals with the above issues.  


There's no reason we couldn't add firmware upgrade paths via over-the-air
updates.  The basic idea of doubling the memory was described on this forum
a week or so ago.  It's not a tech problem.  It is market issues and
liability issues.

So: proposals to deal with the issues above?  Cost, OTA broadcast
responsibility, and liability?

Mike Bergman



>> ------ At 06:45 PM 10/17/2005, Dan Strassberg wrote: -------
>>
>>Phil Alexander singled out HD Radio's lack of upgrade capability as the
>>system's greatest single flaw. I wholeheartedly agree (and Phil and I have
>>generally not agreed on much). I posted about this problem on this list
>>about a month ago. There were more than a dozen responses, and all but one
>>(which was somewhat ambiguous) said that easy software upgrades are 
>>the LAST thing that IBOC needs. Notwithstanding the resounding 


>I recall responding and agreeing that over-the-air upgrades were 
>critical. The Kenwood rep said they had stopped manual upgrades 
>because of the time involved. Upgrading 1.5 billion receivers, I 
>believe, can only be done over the air. My suspicion is that iBorg 
>doesn't want them to be upgraded. They want them to be replaced. An 
>upgrade probably would be free. Replacement lets them sell a radio 
>all over again. Michael, the Kenwood rep said Kenwood had better 
>things to do than make design changes to the radios either to upgrade 
>or provide a unique identifier for each channel.

>>but I believe that without a
>>viable upgrade capability, the system is doomed. OK, I believe that the
>>AM-band system is doomed without the capability; the FM-band system 
>>might be good enough.

>With the admitted flaws in both systems the inability to upgrade the 
>software makes no sense to me unless the manufacturer doesn't care 
>much about the industry. Hard to believe, I know.

>Rich