10th June 2010, 8:47 PM
What I'm suggesting is that the band be replaced with a digital format. Many more stations can occupy it. Satellite radio is on a totally different band anyway.
I'm not suggesting that the pay-radio companies "go free", I'm suggesting that the format the broadcast stations are in be completely replaced and the AM and FM bands can be freed up. In a digital format, they can be compressed nice and tight, and this frees up a lot of space in the spectrum. What for? Well, that depends. At the very least, it'll mean future technologies we haven't thought of will actually HAVE a future, and that's more than enough reason for AM to stop hogging up all the bandwidth. As I said, I don't see FM disappearing any time soon, I give it 30 or so years before it's completely obsolete.
Look at it this way. The FCC has already forced stations to begin switching all their broadcasting to digital formats. This frees up a large part of that spectrum (as well as making the signals more secure against interference), but it didn't result in those stations suddenly becoming satellite companies you need to pay for. All the viewer needed to do was get a digital tuner. That's the same thing I'm suggesting here. AM and FM die, and in their place a much smaller part of the spectrum can hold the same number of stations both took up.
I'm not suggesting that the pay-radio companies "go free", I'm suggesting that the format the broadcast stations are in be completely replaced and the AM and FM bands can be freed up. In a digital format, they can be compressed nice and tight, and this frees up a lot of space in the spectrum. What for? Well, that depends. At the very least, it'll mean future technologies we haven't thought of will actually HAVE a future, and that's more than enough reason for AM to stop hogging up all the bandwidth. As I said, I don't see FM disappearing any time soon, I give it 30 or so years before it's completely obsolete.
Look at it this way. The FCC has already forced stations to begin switching all their broadcasting to digital formats. This frees up a large part of that spectrum (as well as making the signals more secure against interference), but it didn't result in those stations suddenly becoming satellite companies you need to pay for. All the viewer needed to do was get a digital tuner. That's the same thing I'm suggesting here. AM and FM die, and in their place a much smaller part of the spectrum can hold the same number of stations both took up.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)