National Grid Wireless announces first London-based trial of DRM

1 November 2005

National Grid Wireless (formerly Crown Castle UK), one of the UK’s leading broadcast transmission infrastructure providers, has announced the first London-based trial of DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale). DRM is a new digital radio standard which could be used to replace existing analogue AM services with high quality digital sound, and could serve to complement DAB digital radio in the future.

The trial began on Monday, 31 October and will enable National Grid Wireless to examine the applicability of the standard for listeners and broadcasters. National Grid Wireless is working with broadcast partners Virgin Radio, talkSPORT Radio, Kiss 100FM and BBC World Service. In addition the transmission equipment partner for the trial is RIZ Transmitters Co.

John Ward, director, network operations and engineering, commenting on the trial said: “This trial comes on the 10th anniversary of the switch-on of the first BBC DAB transmitter and demonstrates the commitment of National Grid Wireless to remain at the forefront of broadcast transmission technologies.”

The trial will take place from National Grid Wireless’ Crystal Palace site and will operate on 26.080 MHz at an ERP of 400 Watts for approximately six weeks.

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Notes to Editors:

National Grid Wireless

National Grid Wireless is a wholly owned subsidiary of National Grid and is the leading independent provider of infrastructure to the mobile telecommunications operators in the UK, with a portfolio of 14,500 sites throughout the UK.

National Grid Wireless is one of two UK providers of terrestrial infrastructure for the transmission of analogue and digital television and radio broadcasts in the UK and as such achieves a 98% population coverage. In addition to the traditional analogue services, National Grid Wireless has a strong position in the growing digital television market, owning two of the six digital terrestrial television licences and providing infrastructure services to all the Freeview channels and the BBC and BSkyB.

DRM (Digital Radio Mondiale)

1. An open standard, DRM has received the endorsement of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and the International Electrotechnical Committee (IEC).
2. DRM uses compression and digital modulation techniques to transform the quality of analogue signals to clear digital sound.
3. The DRM technology has the potential to complement Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) and FM radio.
4. PC based DRM sets are already on sale.
5. With DRM, broadcasters can integrate data and text with audio, giving consumers new features such as up-to-the-minute news scrolls and traffic data. DRM broadcasts are now available in Europe, North America, and North Africa. Testing is underway in Latin America and Asia. DRM is online at www.drm.org (DRM Consortium Web site), as well as www.deutsches-drm-forum.de (German), www.drmfrance.com (DRM France), www.radiostation.ru/drm (Russian) and www.usdrm.com (U.S.A. DRM Group).

Schedule:

The DRM Trial schedule is available online HERE.

For further information:

Stephen Arnold
National Grid Wireless
+44 (0) 1926 416 870
+44 (0) 7803 887 288 (m)