Imagination sees big opportunities in DAB following recent announcements in Germany and France

Hossein Yassaie, CEO, Imagination Technologies said: “This is tremendous news, and confirmation that the DAB family of standards will without question be the basis of broadcast digital radio throughout Europe for many years to come. Following the success of DAB in the UK, the establishment of comprehensive services across Germany and France ensures a strong and thriving European digital radio industry. As one of the pioneers of DAB, the world’s leading supplier of DAB technology and Europe’s leading supplier of DAB digital radios through our PURE division, we see tremendous opportunities for us as a result of these announcements.”

Imagination is the world’s leading supplier of technology for the reception and decoding of all forms of DAB audio and multimedia services, including DAB+, T-DMB, DMB Audio and DAB as well as FM and RDS. Its unique multi-standard ENSIGMA UCC communications engine and META processors are already at the heart of more than 80% of all DAB radios sold today. The latest UCC Series3 technology supports a wide range of broadcast and internet/IP standards, supporting all forms of digital radio, TV and multimedia content delivery world-wide.

The clear commitment by France and now Germany to national deployment of DAB-based services expands the population in Europe with comprehensive DAB coverage to more than 200m people within the next 2-3 years. This will inevitably lead to all countries in Europe adopting DAB, which together with countries such as Australia, South Korea, Canada, China means that DAB is now likely to become the world’s most widely deployed digital radio standard.

The recent announcement by the German Commission for Broadcasting Policies (Rundfunkkommission) that every Länder in Germany will deploy comprehensive national and regional DAB-based services ensures that every person in Germany will have access to at least 30 to 40 services from both public and private broadcasters. This follows earlier announcements from France confirming that DAB-based services, including advanced multimedia data-rich capabilities, will be deployed across France from 2010.