Digital Radio Mondiale - DRM+

DRM+

While the initial version of DRM covers the broadcasting bands below 30 MHz, the DRM consortium voted in March 2005 to begin the process of extending the system to the VHF bands up to 108 MHz. DRM+ will be the name of this technology.

On 31 August 2009, DRM+ (Mode E) has become an official broadcasting standard with the publication of the technical specification by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute; this is effectively a new release of the whole DRM spec with the additional mode permitting operation above 30 MHz up to 174 MHz.

Wider bandwidth channels are used, which allows radio stations to use higher bit rates, thus providing higher audio quality. A 100 kHz DRM+ channel has sufficient capacity to carry one low-definition 0.7 megabit/s wide mobile TV channel: it would be feasible to distribute mobile TV over DRM+ rather than DMB or DVB-H.

DRM Plus is now successfully tested in Band III, and this gives the DRM system the widest frequency usage; it can be used in band I, II and III. It is possible that DRM+ can co exist with DAB in band III. but also the present FM-band can be utilized. The ITU has published three recommendations on DRM+, known in the documents as Digital System G. This indicate the introduction of the full DRM system (DRM 30 and DRM+). ITU-R Rec. BS.1114 is the ITU recommendation for sound broadcasting in the frequency range 30 MHz to 3 GHz. DAB, HD-Radio and ISDB-T were already recommended in this document as Digital Systems A, C and F respectively.

2011 the paneuropean organisation Community Media Forum Europe has recommended to the European Commission that DRM+ should rather be used for small scale broadcasting (local radio, community radio) than DAB/DAB+.

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