[BC] The economics of digital

[Robert Meuser]

Mark:

You open several interesting cans of worms.   First, most boosters and 
translators must be fed off air in the first place. You are still 
correct in the fact that it compromises the digital.   Second, I do not 
think Ibiquity has yet fixed the issues with synchronous operation. 
Thirdly, if you ignore the legality issues in point one, point two along 
with the license is solvable without Ibiquity's 'help'.  It is just a 
matter of transporting the already modulated signal to the boosters. 
There are a number of schemes that could do this. Possibly the easiest 
is to I/Q demodulate the original digital RF and then remodulate at the 
remote end.  We live in interesting times.

R


Mark Humphrey wrote:

> 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
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