[BC] The economics of digital

[Mark Humphrey]

At the very least, I think iBiquity should waive the licensing fees
(and perhaps transmitting equipment royalties) for any fill-in
translators and/or boosters necessary to correct digital coverage
problems within an FM station's predicted 60 dBu service contour.

Early on, broadcasters were led to believe that IBOC digital coverage
would replicate existing analog service, but in many markets this is
not the case, due to terrain or adjacent-channel interference.  Look
at the surveys NPR Labs has conducted.  Is it fair to demand extra
licensing money to fix a system that doesn't work as promised?

To avoid infringing on iBiquity's intellectual property rights, linear
translators (which don't demodulate the digital signal) have been
introduced by companies such as Armstrong and Fanfare/Crown.  In a
perfect world, these would simply amplify, convert, and retransmit the
digital carriers with no degradation, and everything would be fine--
but unfortunately, the real world is not as forgiving.  Many
translators must deal with adjacent-channel interference, local noise,
tropo and E-skip, etc. that will degrade the bitstream unless "cleaned
up" in the translation process by means of demodulation,
error-correction, and re-modulation.

What is to be gained (by iBiquity) if broadcasters are encouraged to
retransmit a noisy signal that compromises the listening experience?

Mark