Broadcast Electronics (BE), Emmis Communications and NDS, along with iBiquity Digital, jointly announced the successful conclusion of initial HD Radio conditional-access field testing of traffic data services at Emmis station WKQX-FM (Q101) in Chicago.
Pilot testing occurred May 23 and 24 and was the first conditional-access test for broadcasting real-time traffic information over the HD Radio system to vehicle navigational systems.
Initial testing at Q101 addressed the ability of broadcasters to allocate bandwidth and protect content for mobile delivery of traffic information.
BE provided the end-to-end HD Radio solution that included NDS encryption and bandwidth provisioning by BE's IDi 20 HD Radio importer unit. A primary global provider of digital maps for vehicle navigation and Traffic.com provided the real-time traffic content.
The trial included authorization and de-authorization of the receiver for the data service, testing of end-to-end system functionality, successful reception/decryption of the traffic data at the receiver and the recording and logging of data to determine latency and data stability in the encrypted channel. Test drives in various multipath environments around the Chicago area showed no dropped data packets or loss of service.
