On April 19th 2015, officials in Norway announced that the country would be officially shutting down its FM bandwidth in 2017. According to Norway's Minister of Culture, The transition to Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB), will begin on January 11th of 2017, with full compliance by December 13th of that year.
Thorhild Widvey, Norway's Minister of Culture was stated as saying that the switch is being made in order to save some $25 million dollars that is currently being spent to maintain and broadcast radio in analog. Widvey believes that Digital Audio Broadcasting will also give their listeners access to more diverse and pluralistic radio content, while improving sound quality and functionality.
Norway's Digital Audio Broadcasting has been available there since 1995. An updated version of DAB called DAB+ was made available in Norway in 2007. Digital Audio Broadcasting currently offers 22 national channels, while FM only offers five. Radio Broadcasters making the switch will be able to choose whether they want to broadcast as DAB or DAB+. Several other European and Southeast Asian countries are considering the move to Digital Audio Broadcasting. Canada has also approved DAB but there is no timeline for implication in any of the aforementioned countries.
The US has opted to use an HD radio format that will be made possible by a company named Ibiquity. The standard was approved thirteen years ago and some radio stations are already broadcasting both a regular transmission and an HD transmission, until such time as our FM bandwidth is shut down. New radios needed to hear the new broadcast were made available at the end of 2013.
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