Digital Audio Broadcast or DAB is a standard for digital radio broadcast developed by EUREKA as a research project for the European Union. (Project number EU147.) The technology was mainly developed in the 1980s, although the project started in the year 1987 and ended in 2000. Over 285 million people around the world can receive more than 550 different DAB services. The United Kingdom was the first country to receive a wide range of radio stations via DAB, with over 50 commercial and BBC services available in London in 2001.
The DAB Forum represents more than 30 countries. The United States is not among them and plans to use different technologies for digital radio.
DAB broadcasts use the MP2 audio coding technique, a close relative of the popular MP3 format, which was also created as part of the EU147 project.
DAB have the advantage you can hear the same radio station in your car in all the territory without change the dial. Also, you can receive 'radiotext' from the station giving information such as song titles or traffic updates.
Problems with the name Digital occurred with radios, as "digital" can be associcated with a digital method of tuning (commonly found on analogue radios with LCD displays), rather than a digital signal.
One can use a radio card to hear DAB in the computer.
See also: Digital audio broadcasting.
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