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When Will IBOC Arrive?


By Leslie Stimson
RADIO WORLD

By this time next year iBiquity Digital Corp. expects some radio stations in the major markets to transmit both analog and digital signals.
At last year’s NAB Spring Convention two companies were developing in-band, on-channel (IBOC) digital audio broadcasting (DAB) systems. Now there’s only one company, iBiquity, which says it has combined "the best of the best" of the systems from former competitors USA Digital Radio and Lucent Digital Radio.
iBiquity President and Chief Executive Officer Robert Struble will tell attendees where his company stands in terms of system-testing, the regulatory process and commercialization at "DAB: How Soon Is Now?" 1-2:15 p.m., Monday, April 23, Room N240, in the Las Vegas Convention Center. The panel, to be moderated by Federated Media President John Dille, is part of the Radio Management Conference.
"We fully expect to have a ton of stations on the air in 2002 and all the major manufacturers to be selling IBOC transmitter equipment at NAB2002," Struble said.
Several things regarding testing for a standards-setting process and eventual commercialization need to happen before this can be accomplished.
iBiquity has development agreements with RF, receiver and chip manufacturers and is now trying to secure manufacturing deals.
Al Shuldiner has been named vice president and general counsel to oversee the company’s regulatory and intellectual property strategies. Formerly at Vinson & Elkins, Shuldiner handled legal work for the former USADR for 5 years.
The company has been focused on field-testing its FM system. Its vans are being used by the Advanced Television Technology Center, which is conducting the tests under the auspices of the standards-setting body, the National Radio Systems Committee. If all goes as scheduled, iBiquity hopes to begin the AM field tests immediately after this convention.
iBiquity has "put the waveform to bed," as one engineer described it, and the company has a good idea of what it will take to transmit and receive the IBOC waveform. In addition, the Perceptual Audio Coder has not yet been integrated into the system. iBiquity hopes to integrate PAC by the fourth quarter of this year. It is currently using the former USADR’s AAC as the audio codec.
Still, many of the tests the NRSC wants conducted to determine if IBOC performs significantly better than analog can be done in the meantime, notes NRSC DAB Subcommittee Chairman Milford Smith.
"There’s a large number of tests, probably the majority, that are not codec-dependent," Smith said. "Tests having to do with ultimate audio quality are codec-dependent. … There will be a subset (of tests) that will have to be redone with the new coder."
iBiquity is planning a live AM demonstration of its system on KSFN in Las Vegas. It will also be broadcasting its FM system on KWNR. In addition, the company plans to have a kiosk in its booth (R1975) with an interactive demonstration of IBOC’s data transmission capabilities and how those will function in its receivers.

http://www.rwonline.com/nabdaily/radio/MonAM-dab-stimson-MAM.shtml

http://www.nab.org/conventions/nab2001/