Re: "Radio figures soar as nation goes digital": part 1 .. OTA firmware upgrades

Richard Evans wrote:
DAB sounds worse than FM wrote:
Kristoff Bonne wrote:

<snip>


There's no point in responding to each of the individual points,
because I've already done that, and my opinion hasn't changed.

Basically, the DAB module companies know how their own modules work,
so they would be able to thoroughly test the over-the-air upgrade
procedure before actually broadcasting the upgrade file.

It would be easy to check that the whole file had been downloaded
and that it was correct by performing CRC checks, and if there was
any bit that wasn't correct they could just wait for that bit to
come round on the carousel again. The only danger is if something
goes wrong when the file is being committed to memory.

The more I think about it, the more I think the dangers are
exaggerated - I'm not saying there are no risks involved, but I
think you're wildly exaggerating the risks, because the module
manufacturers know about their own hardware and they can test the
whole process beforehand. Over-the-air software upgrades are going to
become the norm for
mobile phones, so if the mobile phone industry thinks it can be done
then I fail to see why it can't be done for radios either.

I'm afraid I'm jumping in here, having not followed this thread up to
this point, however I would like to throw in one idea.

Receivers could have a set of default software stored in ROM chips.
The idea would be that if something some how went wrong with an over
the air upgrade, causing the receiver to fail, then there could be a
reset procedure that would be used to load the software from the ROM.
This could then get the receiver operating again with enough
functionality to receive the over the air upgrade again.

That would help to make an OTH upgrade system a bit more fail safe.


I'm not sure the receiver manufacturers would be keen on doing that though,
because it would double the amount of memory the receiver needs, which would
increase the bill of materials.


--
Steve - www.digitalradiotech.co.uk - Digital Radio News & Info


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