The Loss of DAB Radio and Digital Transmissions in Singapore

I read about the closure of Digital Audio Broadcasts (DAB) with great sadness. We are only given one-month notice before our equipment becomes redundant. This is a far cry from the initial fanfare on DAB, and all the promises of better signal quality, sound and hissless high fidelity music.

Why the demise? Well, despite a promising start, there has been little focus, news or even marketing, and you will have to go out of your way to find people who know about the equipment and little expansion of the stations.

With such little effort devoted to this, it is of no surprise to hear of its demise. What concerns audiophiles and even the man in the street is the ramifications for other media, like digital television.

Digital television was also announced with much promise, and yet, more than four years after it’s introduction, transmission coverage around the island is still sporadic (you could be staying in the same neighborhood, and experience varying degrees of reception). We still only have one main channel, and the quality of the broadcast is quite variable. This is a far cry from many other countries who have embraced digital transmissions for both TV and radio. This is on top of any paid TV, so citizens have a choice.

Not everyone subscribes to cable, and free to air channels is what most Singaporeans enjoy. It will be a pity for new owners of fancy high definition TVs with digital tuners to turn on their sets and find that they cannot embrace the new technology because the MDA is not pushing out digital TV with a 100% effort as they should.

Singapore prides itself as a forward thinking nation, with early adoption of new technology, but our true uptake of this is only token. Buyers of new TVs will do well to temper their expectation of what digital TV (DTV) is like locally. Unless the authorities do a better job, DTV will also go the way of DAB.

 The ultimate irony? Now that they are shutting the network down, the number of times, the word DAB appears has increased exponentially, as they annouce it's closure...

Luckily my Sagean DDR 3 has regular FM reception, so I don't need to relegate it to the trash pile...

I have no financial interest or other interests in any of the items / events I write about.