Lucent Digital Radio Executives Discuss Digital Audio Broadcast Future At NAB Radio Show Panels

Business Wire, Oct 14, 1998

SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 14, 1998--Lucent Digital Radio, a venture created by Lucent Technologies, will present its views on In-Band On-Channel (IBOC) digital audio broadcast (DAB) at two panels at the NAB Radio Show here this week. In addition, Suren Pai, president of Lucent Digital Radio, will present opening remarks before the show's keynote address on Thursday, October 15, starting at 10:15 a.m. Lucent Digital Radio is the official sponsor of this year's keynote address, which will be given by Sam Zell, chairman of Jacor.

At the DAB Managers panel on Friday, October 16, from 1:45-3:00 p.m. in Room 613/614 of the Washington State Trade & Convention Center, Suren Pai will discuss the future of IBOC DAB.

Lucent Digital Radio will also participate in the NAB Radio Engineering workshop series' IBOC proponent panel on Thursday, October 15, from 3:45-5:00 p.m. in Room 615/616 of the Washington State Trade & Convention Center.

"The NAB has been a great supporter of IBOC, and we are happy to be an active participant in this year's Radio Show," said Suren Pai, president of Lucent Digital Radio. "IBOC has the potential to transform the U.S. radio industry in ways that haven't been heard since the introduction of the FM band."

Lucent Digital Radio recently announced three new senior positions on its new management team have been filled by executives with broad technical and industry experience.

David Mansour was appointed vice president of research and development, and Nick Karter was named vice president of business development. Alan Pate was named director named of technology planning.

Mansour has more than 25 years of related experience, having served most recently as chief technical officer of Geotek Communications, Inc., a provider of wireless mobile logistics systems. Mansour will manage four development teams, in systems engineering, transmitter design, receiver design, and integration and testing.

Karter joins Lucent Digital Radio from NextWave Telecommunications Inc., a wireless network provider, where he was director of business development. Karter also served as a consultant for Booz, Allen & Hamilton, an international management and technology consulting firm. Karter will be in charge of marketing and strategic alliances for IBOC technology, and will support a team of business development professionals.

Pate brings 20 years of radio experience from NYNEX Science and Technology, where he led the Cellular Technologies group, and PA Consulting Group, an international management and technology consulting firm, where he was Technical Manager of the North American communications practice. Pate will be responsible for the technical interface to constituencies and partners.

Lucent Digital Radio's demonstration at the NAB Radio Show will use a low-power, over-the-air system that broadcasts digital information in each of the two 100-kilohertz "guard bands" surrounding an analog FM signal.

It is designed to test the robustness of Lucent's In-Band On-Channel (IBOC) technology, which places both high-capacity digital and analog signals within the existing spectrum. The IBOC approach will allow broadcasters to rapidly introduce digital sound to listeners on their current dial positions with existing transmitters and antennas. High-power broadcast testing with radio stations is expected to follow within the next few months.

"Our technology demonstration at NAB and our executive appointments show that we're strongly committed to be the leader in the exciting field of digital radio broadcasting," said Suren Pai, president and chief executive officer of the new venture. "We've got the best technology and the best team to develop a successful IBOC DAB system for both AM and FM, and we will work with individual stations, radio groups, and standards bodies to achieve this goal on behalf of the radio broadcast industry."

Lucent Technologies and its research and development unit, Bell Laboratories, have been leaders in the digital encoding of information used in communications systems, and have been at the forefront of digital audio broadcasting (DAB) technology for the past decade. Bell Labs has developed and patented several technologies for the DAB market, including the Perceptual Audio Coding (PAC(tm)) algorithm. The PAC encoder converts AM or FM radio signals into high quality digital signals.

There are more than 12,000 radio stations in the United States (AM and FM combined), and Americans own more than 500 million radios, or more than 5 per household. About 40 million radios are sold in the U.S. each year.

The coming migration to digital radio presents a sizable opportunity for the consumer electronics industry and will enable radio broadcasters to provide improved services to listeners.

Lucent Digital Radio is the second Lucent venture in the digital broadcast market. Lucent Digital Video, announced in January, 1998, markets its industry-leading MPEG-2 encoders to the broadcast, cable, wireless cable, fiber optic and satellite markets.