DRM at Regulator Session in India as Part of Indian Mobile Congress

The Indian Mobile Congress, where innovation met imagination, and technology paved the way for a brighter, more connected future, has just closed but reverberations continue. The final session, ‘Digital Radio Technology: Deployment Strategies in India,’ examined the strategies for deploying digital radio for the Indian market. Experts discussed the advantages digital radio offers, including superior sound quality, spectrum efficiency and the ability to deliver multimedia services; along with the challenges and solutions for interoperability with existing analogue networks, enabling a smoother transition to digital broadcasting (Press Release: Press Information Bureau).

In this special session headlined by the regulator TRAI, Alexandre Zink, the Vice-Chairman of the DRM Consortium and Mr Yogendra Pal, Honorary Chairman of the DRM Indian Platform, addressed key benefits of DRM like excellent audio and more choice in all frequency bands, emergency warning delivery, distance education, public signage, traffic information dissemination. Mr Pal focused on the very practical aspects of multi-channel broadcasting in the FM band that can offer FM digitisation options without interference, with spectrum and energy savings. He pointed out that only software-level additions are needed, instead of additional chips or physical infrastructure. “The software app is already available. The only thing which is required is the tuner which receives radio signals on mobile phones, which is currently analogue, and must give permission to receive digital radio content,” he explained.

Mr Pal mentioned that the DRM Consortium has discussed the same with mobile manufacturers and they are ready to provide this facility, provided the government announces a policy for digital radio. Notably, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India recently rolled out a consultation paper for digital radio, seeking inputs on a range of issues including the kind of technology India should adopt for digital radio, and the approach to migrating existing FM radio broadcasters to digital radio.

A recording of the complete session is available via YouTube.
Alexander Zink’s presentation starts at 3:10:26 (direct link).
Mr Yogendra Pal’s presentation starts at 3:34:47 (direct link).

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