Digital radio in Canada has failed because they were early adopters of the Eureka 147 DAB system on the L band, which was never authorized for use in the U.S. The American government decided to keep the L band for military use.
A-Digital radio, except for internet radio, requires buying new receivers, or equipment. Consumers do not know, or care if the radios are L band or something else. HD internet radio uses equipment, services, and facilities most consumers already have.
Unfortunately for Canada, most consumer electronics manufacturers consider that country as nothing more than an extension of the U.S. market. With no DAB radio in the United States, almost no manufacturers made the receivers just for Canada.
A-Eureka, DRM, WI-FI, the internet, and soon, WI-MAX, as well as other systems are worldwide, and not just in Canada.
More radios and TV's are sold outside the United States then inside. This has been true for decades.
If the American government had authorized DAB on the L band when the rest of the world approved it in the late 80s, chances are digital radio would have been launched in the U.S. using that system at about the same time as it was in Canada. With Canada and the U.S. making up an entire North American market for DAB, more receiver manufacturers would have jumped on board and I believe it would have flourished in both countries.
A-The market for radios, TVs, and other media is worldwide, and far bigger then just the US.
However the rejection of that DAB proposal by U.S. policymakers forced our American broadcasters to make the best of a bad situation. If they wanted to have digital broadcasting here, there was no choice but to do it on the existing AM & FM bands. This is what ultimately led to the development of IBOC, which is finally hitting the air nearly a decade later.
A-IBiquity is far from the only method of getting digital audio, video, or media, even HD. The US already has two exclusive digital radio services, Sirius, and XM, as well as others that are worldwide such as internet, WI-Fi, etc. The old line media have the same opportunity to participate in digital media as anyone else, in fact some own stock in Sirius, and XM, and most broadcast digitally over the internet and by extension WI-FI. No one "forced" American broadcasters to do anything. They made the bad decision to go with the flawed and defective iBiquity system over the objections of the public, engineers, scientists, and just about everyone. They talked themselves into it, by self deception.
Now it's not realistic to say that same thing will happen in the U.S. with HD Radio/IBOC as happened in Canada with DAB. It's an entirely different system, the market is ten times larger and there's a lot more money being spent on getting it into the marketplace. Even at this early stage in its evolution, there are already more HD radio receivers on the market here in the U.S. than there ever were DAB receivers available in Canada.
A-Again, Eureka, DRM, FMeXtra (www.dreinc.com), WI-FI, (soon) WI-MAX and other systems are available and in operation worldwide, and not just in Canada. The US alone, no longer drives the world market for media.
I think any radio enthusiast would admit they'd have rather had a whole new radio band with a dedicated digital transmission system. Instead we ended up with a compromise thanks to our government, but a compromise is better than nothing, so considering that's what got approved I look forward to seeing it succeed.
A-The FCC gave us Sirius, XM, exclusively in the US, as well as the flawed iBiquity system. Most other digital media are available worldwide, including the US. About the only thing the US did not get was the use of the "L band". So what. The L band digital is failing just like iBiquity. There are already too many other, better, digital media choices.
I believe Canada will ultimately adopt the same system as the U.S. because the our country's marketplace tends to set the standard for the entire continent due to supply & demand. Historically, Canada has followed the lead of the U.S. in such matters, not the other way around, and I understand they're already talking about switching to IBOC now that it's finally happening to their south.
A-Canada would be foolish not to investigate the iBiquity system for FM among all other alternatives. They have already pretty much rejected iBiquity for AM, and have not been favorably impressed by the interference and channel allocation problems of iBiquity for FM. No one has reported that Canada is about to switch to iBiquity, except it's promoters, and they are nothing but all hype all the time. As one prominant board poster, and HD supporter exclaimed when confronted by the iBiquity cartel's wild claims, virtually all claims made by iBiquity supporters are BS.
I agree.
Remember, the world demand, and market for digital media is mostly outside the US.
The only people interested in HD Radio/IBOC seem to be a few "radio geeks", who enjoy the challenge of mounting roof-top and attic dipole antennas - and they get to DX their local IBOC stations. An interesting note in the article about digital radio in Canada, is that they are abandoning terrestrial DRB in-dash and installing Satellite Radio, instead: