On October 8-9, the DRM Consortium took part in a very well attended digital radio workshop organised by Kominfo (Ministry of Communications, Information and Technology of Indonesia). During the two days seminar held in Jakarta around 100 people offline, and about 200-450 people on Zoom participated in sessions looking at the current radio situation in Indonesia and, the concrete options for radio digitisation. Key presentations were made by DRM consortium representatives, Fraunhofer IIS and the WorldDAB key speakers. During the event Indonesian broadcasters and manufacturers came up with over 60 questions covering diverse topics from technology to licensing regime and future deployment of DRM and DAB+ in the country.
The DRM presenters (Ruxandra Obreja, Chairman of the DRM Consortium, Johannes von Weyssenhoff, CEO of Starwaves and Chairman of the DRM Technical Committee, Matthew Phillips, Product Director at CML Micro and DRM Steering Board Member, H.C. Liu, General Manager at Toncy (a subsidiary of Gospell) and DRM Consortium Member) gave a detailed overview of DRM technology across various frequency bands (LF/MF/HF, VHF in FM Band, and Band III) highlighting the core features and applications such as Emergency Warning Functionality, Public Signage, Distance Learning, traffic information.
As Indonesia is looking at introducing DRM in AM, FM, and part of band III, a lot of attention and examples were given for the multi-channel transmissions, suitable for public, commercial and community stations. During the Broadcasters’ Session, the association of community radio broadcaster (JRKI) shared the preferred cost for the One-Box solution (excluding antenna and CME) to be less than USD 1,275, if used by single community broadcaster, or up to USD 2,550 if shared by 2 or 3 community broadcasters.
And, while Kominfo is looking at announcing a receiver policy possibly in 2025, the DRM Consortium South Korean member RF2Digital showed for the first time their module supporting both DRM and DAB+ in Band III with easy switch between the two standards, a solution developed specifically for the Indonesian market.
Starwaves and Fraunhofer IIS of Germany also demonstrated how their SoftRadio which – with the support of an off-the-shelf receiver dongle – can turn any Android phone into a Radio, a Smartphone demonstrator with built-in DRM and DAB reception in Band III (as well as in the other bands) on the same device. Other Starwaves products and the module are upgradeable to Band III on request.
CML and Gospell presented their different, affordable versions of DRM modules and applications in cars and on other platforms, showing their willingness to offer multi-standard DRM-DAB receiver options for Indonesia, a country of almost 280 million and over 2,000 radio stations.
For an overview of other DRM member’s receiver developments and innovations visit: products.drm.org.
In the Fraunhofer IIS presentation delivered by Alexander Zink and Sharad Sadhu the emphasis was on the core features of Digital Radio which both – DRM and DAB – have in common and made proposals for the successful introduction and implementation of digital radio in Indonesia. This is followed by a full presentation from WorldDAB.
This was a rich, well-organised seminar that proved the interest of the large radio segment of over 2,000 radio stations in a country of almost 280 million people and 17,000 islands. It also challenged the representatives of different Indonesian and foreign organisations to think innovatively and cooperate in achieving a realistic digital radio in Indonesia.
Here is the link to the full documents (the file with “ENG” suffix at the filename is the English-translated): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1-dtGHWrs5dPddl6MeSwhiN-cutkQsrfy.