A lot of people have been talking about the 'Digital Britain' report without actually having read it.  For interest, here is the actual document; Digital Britain.

I was slightly shocked at it's naivité.  Seems to have been written for teenagers.  The digital radio section is a disaster of perception. 

Hi Christopher,

Never have so many words said so little ! or that's the way it seemed.

One disturbing section was the proposal to charge for format shifting and re-use charges for copying or delaying media or data .

Also not one mention of superior or improved sound quality of any type , unless of course I fell asleep and missed it .

All the best Electro.

Electro,

No, you didn't miss anything; there was no mention of sound quality.  There was also no consideration of the possibility that DAB may just collapse.  It was really badly done.

The only useful thing was the reinforcement of the idea that there should be internet access to a minimum standard as a universal service in the way that the post is a universal service. 

Hi Electro, Chris - couldn't read it all otherwise I would have gone into a deep coma, but I also found nothing about quality of delivered content.

I still find the depth of colour on analogue TV better than digital the same as 625 line was better than 405 and colour was better than monochrome, FM was better than AM. All these needed more bandwidth than their predecessors, although colour telly is one of the most unbelievable technical achievements as it required no more bandwidth than monochrome as were 1200bps modems  developed to 56Kbps speed. When I first came into contact with Prestel 1200 was considered the theoretical maximum, then came aong 9600, then 56K all these systems were losless. But the same cannot be said for DAB or digital TV.

Now it seems bandwidth = £££ and real quality can be compromised in the interest of more channels and more revenue.

I believe also that ‘digital Britain’ is aiming for web access of 2MB/s as against many other countries who set their target nearer 10 or even 50MB/s. Is that leading the world?

I did not notice any contribution from Hi Fi gurus about the quality implications, I think the whole report is more a political statement to make the government look proactive and forward thinking, to try and win the next election, a situation they seem desperate to do.

Just my 2p worth.

John…