Planning aspects of satellite and terrestrial digital sound broadcasting

Abstract

AbstractDAB is one of the most promising sound broadcasting techniques for the future. It will soon start terrestrial operations, and later on will be used for satellite broadcasting.The Eureka 147 DAB system is based on a set of well‐demonstrated techniques, in particular the MUSICAM coding, adopted by MPEG, and OFDM modulation. It allows great spectrum efficiency, profiting from the single frequency network concept, one of the most interesting characteristics of the system.However, frequency problems remain a difficulty, as DAB must either examine the possibility of entering existing heavily used frequency bands or wait until the new frequency bands allocated by WARC 92 become fully available.For terrestrial broadcasting, most interested operators, broadcasters and manufacturers are convinced that appropriate solutions will be found and that DAB will start operational services from about 1996. In Europe, a CEPT planning conference will address the matter in 1995.Satellite broadcasting may come later. Short wave broadcasters examine possibilities to replace short waves, the quality of which is so poor, by digital satellite broadcasting. From the frequency spectrum point of view, this raises the difficulty of sharing frequency allocations with terrestrial applications.