Digital radio broadcast in Malaysia

Recently FM radio spectrum is very limited in Peninsular Malaysia. Many new radio stations are unable to expand broadcast coverage by applying frequencies. In Europe and rest of the world, most of radio stations broadcasts digitally via famous DAB+, especially in Norway.

Norway is the first country to stop analogue FM transmission in the world. In UK, BBC runs digital only radio stations such as 1Xtra, 4Xtra, 5Xtra, 6, alongside with analogue stations.

Talk about digital radio transmission, there are few types of it, such as DAB+, mobile app, decoder and online streaming.

DAB stands for Digital Audio Broadcasting. It carries more radio stations on a frequency only than FM radio. It carries less noise from other stations. DAB+ can run single frequency network (SFN) by launching few gap filler transmitters within main transmitter coverage. In my opinion, DAB+ has its pro and con. For Malaysia, DAB+ is still not mature here yet because most of Malaysia radio receivers don't feature DAB+ yet. In the cars, most of the stereos have no DAB+, instead they only come with FM and AM band.

For Malaysians taste of radio listening, many people are still preferring to listen to the stations via either FM radio or mobile app, even internet online streaming. In terms of transmission costs of DAB+, I think that there is nothing different with FM radio transmission costs.

For broadcasters, they need to launch more DAB+ transmitters than FM transmitters. Currently most of commercial FM radio broadcasters consists about 12-15 transmitters in Malaysia, inclusive Borneo states. If these commercial radio broadcasters switch to digital, they may need transmitters more than 20, because DAB+ coverage is not wide as FM radio. DAB+ signal drops rapidly when signal is poor, unlike FM signal drops slowly with hissing sound or interference noise from other radio stations when FM signal is poor. Imagine if Malaysia switch to DAB+ suddenly, many people will not accustom yet and they need more time to accustom with digital radio. Actually DAB+ radio receiver is more expensive than FM-AM radio.

Due to growing of internet streaming/mobile app around the world, DAB+ is the main competitor of mobile app. Radio mobile app is low cost transmission, people will listen to their radio stations by using mobile phone.

The launching of mobile app by radio broadcasters can save more annual transmission costs to transmission service providers, rather than expanding coverage based on market values. I give an example with my favorite radio station, BFM 89.9

BFM 89.9 is English business radio station in Malaysia which broadcasts in Klang Valley, South Perak, West Pahang, parts of Negeri Sembilan, Melaka and North East Johor. Their main target area is Klang Valley, where is high business value area in Malaysia. When talking about coverage expansion, Penang is their second resort (actually I'm pending for them after making proposals). Then, Johor (JB) is their third stops, but there is no frequency because heavily occupied together with Singapore and Batam. Besides these business centric markets, other towns like Kuantan, Kelantan, Terengganu, KK and Kuching have no market values. Instead of waste transmission costs to launch frequency in non-business areas, BFM and most of radio stations launch mobile apps. People who stayed outside of these business area can listen to BFM via mobile app, even around the world.
   
Mobile app radio is very popular around the world nowadays. In Malaysia, we cannot expect every listener will tune the radio stations via mobile app because many of us still rely on FM radio to listen to stations. Listen to FM radio stations does not pay any cash to broadcasters, but listeners may need to pay their internet data when listen to mobile app radio because it relies on internet.

tunein.com is also one of mobile app radio around the world.

Rather than DAB+, most of the car audio system manufacturers never come out with DAB+ radio band, instead they add "Bluetooth" and AUX features with FM-AM radio, even Apple and Android launch their "Apple CarPlay" and "Android Smart Link" in the car audio system. Most of today car radio comes with Apple CarPlay and Android Smart Link. With these advance features, listeners can enjoy listening the station via mobile app without any interruptions in the car.

Some of cheaper cars never feature with Apple CarPlay and Android Smart Link, instead the audio system comes with Bluetooth. So, listeners can use mobile app to connect Bluetooth on multimedia system in the car. Next, even home HiFi or microsystem also feature with Bluetooth function.

Without Bluetooth function, mobile app radio still can be connected via AUX cable in most of older audio system.

Download mobile app radio to the smartphone is mostly free, but listen to the radio via mobile app is not fully free of charge because it requires mobile internet data, but it depends on the listeners mobile data monthly plan.

Due to popularity of mobile app radio, I suggest that telecommunications company like Maxis, DiGi, Celcom, and U Mobile should increase more data quota to fill up mobile app radio usage. Such as monthly RM38 12GB data (2GB Youtube+ 2GB Facebook+4GB data)+4GB radio app data.

DAB stands for digital audio broadcasting, we can name it in many terms.

- Terrestrial known as DAB-T+
- Digital satellite radio as DAB-S
- Digital cable radio as DAB-C
- Digital mobile app radio as "DAB-MA"
- Digital online streaming radio as "DAB-IR"

In conclusion, I think that mobile app radio is more relevant than DAB+ in Malaysia.