Finally French Fast Forward on Digital Radio

CC licensed by McPig.

The evolution from analogue radio via FM to digital radio via DMB/DAB+ is picking up speed by the day. Germany launched nationwide radio for the first time since WWII in August via DAB+ while Norway in May decided to switch off FM. The signal effects have been strong, and we see many other countries on five continents follow suit.

And finally, France
But what about France? Merkel and Sarkozy are working very close on the economy, can we see the influence of the close German French cooperation also when it comes to radio?

We can now. The Conseil supérieur de l'audiovisuel (CSA) is the French institution that has been given the responsibility of regulating radio, television and other electronic media. It has now called for DAB+ to be used as a standard for digital radio in France. A letter formally asking the French government to adopt DAB+ as a new digital radio standard was sent from CSA in December, according to Les Echos, the most influencial business newspaper in France.

France has so far been very undecisive in their approach to digital radio. They first decided to go for DMB Audio, a part of the same standard (Eureka-147), but DMB is originally ment for mobile television, so it was an odd choice. No other country had chosen to go for DMB Audio as the radio standard, most preferred DAB or the more effective DAB+. And of course, there were hardly any DMB Audio receivers on the market, whereas there were hundreds of DAB/DAB+ models.

The Kessler hurdle
Then last year, David Kessler published his "Kessler report," a recommendation to prime minister Francois Fillon on what to do with regards to digitalization of radio. The report contained a number of errors, didn't properly take into consideration the international evolution and seemed to show a lack of understanding of the subject matter. Kessler concluded that the government should wait for two to three years before letting radio go digital. An odd choice given the progress in other big countries such as Germany, Australia, the UK, Italy and the Netherlands. Some speculated that Kessler was influenced strongly by private broadcasters that did not want to see competition in the already full FM band. DAB+ opens up for many more stations, thus increasing competition to those already holding lucrative FM licenses. The report came out in May last year (a week before the Norwegian government decided to switch off FM in 2017), and soon met the fate of other governmental reports of mediocre quality, it was left in a pile to turn yellow.

Note that DAB+ is already being tested in Lyon, with so many broadcasters interested in getting stations on air that more bandwidth (a second mux) will be made available. And radio sales are rumoured to go well in Lyon.

The successful test there may have contributed to CSA taking the matter in their own hands through their letter to the government, opening up for broadcasters to go for DAB+ in addition to DMB Audio. The decision was made in November 2011, but not made public until December and not picked up by me until now.

This is great news for radio in France. There will almost instantly be hundreds if not thousands of new radio models on the market. There will now be made room for more stations, something that usually forces broadcasters into making better radio programmes due to more competition. And digital radio also opens up for additional services, including a combination of broadcasting and the internet. France's move furthermore creates a  bigger market for device manufacturers, something that means better choice and lower prices in all the countries that have decided to go for DMB/DAB+, the de facto standard for digital radio and mobile TV.

The listeners win. They always do in the end, also in France.

Little Visa Problems in Big China

You now have to scan your passport to get Wi-Fi access at PEK.

I just arrived at PEK, aka. Beijing International Airport. I am on my way to Seoul on business, so I am just about to transfer here for almost four hours. I have transferred here many times before, and I don't mind since my frequent flier card gives me lounge access. The Star Alliance lounge at PEK is pretty good and the airport is nice, modern and clean.

Too many visas
But today was not like the other times. I had just left my CA flight from Stockholm and was to go through international transfers. Usually that takes a minute. You have to look into the camera, have your photo taken and both boarding pass and passport stamped. This time this procedure proved difficult. Why? Apparently because of my visa to Nigeria which I used this summer. The policeman picks up his phone, calls his supervisor who comes speeding over on his Segway five minutes later. They converse, before the supervisor takes my passport and speeds off with his walking machine. Ten minutes later the policeman offers me a chair. I start fearing that this will take a while. 15 minutes later he has finished the other transfer passengers. He is on the phone again before asking me to follow through a couple of gates. He shows me into "Special Examination Room." Beautiful! No rubber gloves in sight though.

There three other police officers are going through my passport, checking every single visa against a database of scanned visas. Some problems though.

- Is Guinea a country, one of the officers ask?
- That is for Equatorial Guinea, not Guinea. I try to explain.
- Ghana?
- No, Equatorial Guinea.
- Oh. Is that a country or an area?
- It's a country.

I am asked to sit down. One police officer remains in the room with me, going through every visa and every stamp in my passport. That is currently 51 (I just counted).

- Which country is this?
- Grenada.
- Grenada?
- Yes, it's in the Caribbean.

She finds Grenada in an internal database and a word document with a lot of text and several scanned versions of the Grenada visa. She is going through every one of my 51 visas and stamps, apparently looking for any that do not look real.

Country games
- Which country is this?
- Trinidad and Tobago.
- And this.
- Chad.
- How about this?
- Iraq.
- ??
- Central African Republic.
- What?
- Central African Republic.
- Which country?
- Republic of Central Africa.

She finally finds it and checks the database for matching visas. We continue the game for 10 or 15 minutes.

- Please wait here.

She leaves. After 20 minutes I am starting to get slightly impatient. There is nothing much in the 10 square meter big room except for the desk with the computer, one Segway being charged, a microphone in the ceiling, a metal cabinet and a surveillance camera.

I walk out to try to find her. She is standig by three senior colleagues, still going through my passport, scanning every single page. My visas have now likely been added to their collection.

Lounge time
I  am finally allowed to leave, and I go to the Air China lounge. I ask for the Wi-Fi password which has been printed on small pieces of paper in the past. No longer so.

- The passport machine, the woman behind the counter sneers and looks down.

She must be having a bad day or just been asked the same questions way too many times.

Passport machine? Oh yes. You will now have to register your passport in order to get access to Wi-Fi at PEK.

According to Ministry of Public Order No. 82 Passengers online should authenticate by real name.

OK, so not only is large and important parts of the internet blocked. Now, they do also want to know all the personal details of everyone that uses what is left of it. One can only imagine what can and may be cross checked.

blogger.com, where I write this blog, is for instance blocked. So is Norwegian Broadcasting Corporations website, Facebook and Twitter. The solution is to use VPN. I don't know if everything I do and surf on can still be tracked, but at least I could write this blog post.

Korea, here we come. Land of the free.

South Korea, that is.

Why FM is More Expensive than Digital

The Kolsås transmitting tower outside Oslo has transmitters for DMB/DAB. 

I often hear that FM is cheaper than digital radio or mobile TV via DMB/DAB/DAB+. This is often argued, especially when it comes to small local radios. Let us create a scenario.

Tinyville
This little town has 10,000 inhabitants, all living within an area of 20 square kilometers. There is a small hill on one side where the local radio station, TinyFM, has a transmitter and an antenna which has beamed out it's programs for years. TinyFM is however not very financially stable. The only revenues come from some advertising and the weekly radio bingo, where the listeners buy bingo coupons and play for money prizes every Thursday eveneing. It is therefore important for them to keep all costs down.

Will digital radio be more expensive than analogue for TinyFM? It will not, although this is a common misconception. 

FM costs
TinyFM paid 3500 USD for it's complete FM transission gear. They have one radio station on air and need the following:

1 transmitter / amplifier
1 VHF mask filter
1 VHF antenna
Small bits and pieces

What would it cost to do the same via DAB/DAB+?

DMB/DAB/DAB+ costs
We would need the same kind of stuff, although not identical gear:

1 transmitter / amplifier
1 VHF mask filter
1 VHF antenna
Small bits and pieces

And some more:
1 server
1 front-end

European Broadcasting Union showed such a DMB/DAB/DAB+ setup at a conference in Belfast in October, 2010. The costs? 4 800 USD. That is 37% more expensive than FM.

But there is a major difference:

For FM one transmitter/amplifier is needed per radio station.
For DMB/DAB/DAB+, you can have over 20 radio stations, 6 mobile TV channels or a mixture of mobile TV schannels and radio stations.

 The moment you decide to transmit two radio stations, the costs go down to 2 400 USD per station. With 15 radio stations the cost will be 320 USD per station. That is 9% of the cost of one FM station (or a 90% discount). The prices here are for the equipment, not for running costs. Electricity costs are similar on the transmission side as long as there's only one radio station. The moment you introduce more stations (as you can do digitally), electricity used per station will decline dramatically.

TinyFM will therefore encounter a little higher costs for transmission gear, although not substantially. The moment they start an extra station which could boost listenership and revenues, they should benefit. TinyFM may however not have the staffing nor the potential advertising revenues that may justify another station. In that case, they may want to stay with FM, something that governments in both Norway and the UK have opened up for. They will not put pressure on local radio stations to move away from FM, but they may see the benefits and decide to do this themselves.

Friends on technology, foes on content
This is something that broadcasters in several countries have discovered, although on a much larger scale than in Tinyville. In i.e. Norway, Germany, Australia and the Netherlands competing broadcasters have decided to join forces. They cooperate on technology and compete on content. That is obviously a win win situation financially due to lower actual costs. By cooperating on the same mux, all costs can be devided between several companies. Instead of having to pay everything yourself (equipment, installation costs, running costs, internet / radio lines, etc.) this can now be divided by 2, 3, 4 or split between even more companies. Big savings, in other words.

But there are also other benefits:

• It is greener as one network will serve everyone.
• Hosting can be done more efficiently and secure.
• Marketing is more efficient. Competitors can help each other in getting people to get DMB/DAB/DAB+ receivers with the benefits and possibilities they give.
• A clearer message is carried across. One organization can easier coordinate towards the government, network operators, bureaucracy, etc. This makes communication and formal processes easier and faster. 

Singapore's DAB Troubles Explained

Creative Commons photo by Augustin Rafael Reyes.

Digital radio via DAB will cease to exist in Singapore from December 1, 2011 it was reported today. That must be a major blow to those of us that promote DMB/DAB/DAB+, right?

Not at all. There is no drama here, as I will explain, although those opposing DAB will probably use this for what they think it is worth. There are several reasons why Singapore switches off DAB, a little over 10 years after their first broadcast. None of them are dramatic to DMB/DAB/DAB+ elsewhere.

1. Singapore is one of the very smallest country in the world, measuring only 693 square kilometers. That means that FM can cover the island state with a few transmitters per radio station. There is therefore not much money, in real terms, to save.

2. DAB has been a little on and off in Singapore. That means that there hasn't been much reliability for listeners. If there is no security, fewer of them will buy receivers. The government never initiated a switch off date for FM, nor a clear policy on the matter.

3. The available bandwidth has not been used efficiently. There has been 13 radio stations on air. In addition there are over 20 data services available, although these have been available to few people due to lack of compatible devices. The high number of services has affected sound quality and it has been like wasting bandwidth.

4. There are no stations available only via DAB. The 13 stations are all simulcast with FM, something that does not give people much of an incentive to buy DAB radios.

5. Media laws in Singapore are strict. They do have freedom of speech in theory and in their constitution. But reports say differently: "Freedom of speech is abysmal at best." Abysmal? It means "extremely or hopelessly bad or severe." Why would the government open up for a technology that gives listeners a wider range of choice, and potentially more critical news reports, if they can limit this effectively by limiting bandwidt as they are essentially doing by staying with FM?

6. The DAB network in Singapore seems to have been built in a less than ideal manner so that coverage is not great in all areas. Such problems create insecurity among listeners and slows purchases and thus uptake of the technology. (This point has been made after feedback from readers of this blog post.)

I still believe that this is a backward decision. DMB/DAB/DAB+ gives a wide range of opportunities and I have previously listed 21 reasons why FM should be switched off.

Half a billion people in over 40 countries are covered by DMB, DAB and/or DAB+ signals. My guess is that Singapore will launch DMB/DAB/DAB+ yet again within three years, although then better planned.

FM may not be built very well either
The following anonymous comments were posted to this blog post, allegedly from someone who knows Singapore.
In one part of Singapore FM cannot be received for some technical reasons all of the signals are mixed up so no FM station is clear. [...] This meant that a lot of people in the area went out and purchased very expensive DAB radios so they have radio. [...] I think the radio company has conveniently forgotten about their problem with FM in our area.

Denmark Also to Switch Off FM

Creative Commons by Celesteh.

On May 19, 2011 the Norwegian government passed a bill that states that FM will be switched off in June 2017. Both myself and others believed that this would influence other countries. And it has.

Yesterday, Danish Minister of Culture, Mr. Uffe Elbæk stated that he wants to switch off FM in Denmark too. He wants to prioritize radio as a medium by speeding up digitalization, according to the radio oriented news site radionyt.com.

He writes: "The DAB technology and internet radio give new possibilities to secure an increased diversity of nationwide and local radio offerings. Local and regional radio will be digitalized through DAB, and as was done in Norway, a switch off date for FM will be set."

It is not clear when the date will be determined or when switch off will occur.

Other countries such as United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands and Australia do also aim for a switch off date for FM. The UK may be the first to switch off. They will switch off FM two years after 50% of all radio listening occurs digitally. It is now at almost 30%. If that is achieved before 2015, they can beat Norway to it as being the first country to switch off. Can Denmark do it even faster?

The questions is now, which countries will follow suit?

Like Selling Flowers to Unfaithful Husbands

Tivizen IP-100, the dongle that supercharges Ipads, Ipods and Iphones.

Do you have an Iphone, Ipod or Ipad? Do you miss radio or TV on the device? A lot of I-owners seem to be very pleased with their devices, but a little annoyed that there are no radio or TV functionality built in.

International DMB Advancement Group is cooperating with a Korean manufacturer to introduce a little dongle that plugs into Apple devices, directs the user to an app that instantly provides broadcasted radio and television to the device (via DMB/DAB/DAB+). Broadcasting means radio waves that distributes radio and mobile TV without an internet connection (just like to an traditional radio or television set). The dongle will therefore give you radio and TV without any costs or bandwidth constraints and without the need for an internet connection via Wi-Fi or 3G.

The device comes with it's own battery and can run off that one, run off the mother device's battery or even provide extra battery capacity to the "mother ship." The dongle's own battery works for 4 hours with constant radio or TV usage.

I was demonstrating the dongle at IFA, the world's biggest consumer electronics event which is being organized in Berlin every September. Virtually everyone that tested the device wanted one. Instantly. Like selling flowers to unfaithful husbands or umbrellas in Bergen, rain capital of the world. Except for the fact that I only had a few demo sets available, none which were for sale. I was offered cash, cheques and even drinks in return for one of my few demo sets. I had to decline and rather tell them that the device will be sold shortly around Europe.

The device will probably sell for 49-59 Euros. I would like to perform a little temperature measurement. Would you buy this dongle, which comes in black or white? Please comment below or send me an email. This will help IDAG (an organization which I head) plan distribution around the world. Do note that IDAG is a non-profit organization that works to promote, facilitate and coordinate DMB/DAB/DAB+ activities world wide. IDAG does not make money on this or other similar devices.

Voting, Chatting, Twittering.On Your TV, On Your Radio.

Interact via the internet while watching TV via DMB or listening to radio via DAB/DAB+
(CC by GG).

It has been over five months since I wrote about the first combination tablet being produced. The device in question is the Identity E201, a 7 inch Android tablet made by Enspert in Korea. It has been through some production delays, but it is finally being field tested in Norway, Germany, Netherlands and Italy with promising results.

Pick your radio channel (via DAB/DAB+).

Or watch TV (via DMB).

I'll cover the most relevant specs. The Identity E201 can receive mobile television and digital radio via DMB, DAB and DAB+ in Band III. The tablet has been approved by Google, so Android Market is available and the built-in GPS works well with Google Maps. It comes with Wi-Fi, but not yet with 3G. To get 3G, you will have to wait for it's sister model, the Identity E303 which will be available later in 2011.

What makes the device exciting is the combination of broadcasting (DMB/DAB/DAB+) and the internet (Wi-Fi). That means that you can watch live broadcasted TV while interacting with others through chat, Facebook or Twitter, receive breaking news through an RSS feed, get on-demand access the last or next episode of the programme you have just been watching and take part in on screen voting. Everything is accessed through an app, the beta version of which has now been launched.

Share your views on the programmes.

Post them to the wall.

Chat with friends, foes or strangers.

Plan your evening.

The examples above have already been implemented as pictured in this blog post, but there are virtually no limitations to which services you can add to live radio or TV programmes with such tablets when the API to the DMB/DAB/DAB+ chipset is available.

The Dutch distributor Rebox takes orders on these devices which will be available for delivery by the end of September. You can read more about availability on the on the website of IDAG (International DMB Advancement Group).


The Identity E201 has been approved by Google. That means that all
Android apps are available by a touch on your screen. The
DMB/DAB/DAB+ app is in beta. It's working title is MiniTV.



Looking Outside the Box

Broadcasting has traditionally been seen as a way to distribute radio and television. Some has seen it as the only way to do so. But the industry is changing the views on what can be distributed, how it can be distributed and why a combination of various distribution technologies is the way forward.

The EBU's (European Broadcasting Union) annual conference on digital radio will in 2011 focus on how digital radio, mobile TV and the internet can be combined in order to reach out to more people with more programmes and with more possibilities for dialogue, interaction and additional services that make the radio stations and TV channels even more relevant, enjoyable and spot on.

The conference programme is not finalized yet, but speakers from around Europe will contribute to a conference which will show broadcasters, telecom operators, devicemanufacturers, network providers, politicians and beurocrats how to look outside the box.

One of the keynote speakers is Mr. Roger Solheim who is the State Secretary of The Norwegian Ministry of Culture. He will go in detail of why The Government of Norway has decided to switch off FM in 2017. He will also explain why going digital means many more radio stations for everyone across the mountainous country and cover the added possibilities for interactivity, on-demand programmes and additional services. A range of other speakers with insight of the broadcasting industry will share thoughts and ideas in Brussels.

The event will take place in the European Parliament on October 11-12.

Do watch this space for updates on the agenda.

Another Case Against T2

A DAB/DAB+ radio from Tecsonic and an Identity tablet with built in DMB/DAB/DAB+. (CC by GG.)

Whenever you have a problem, there will always be someone claiming that a solution will solve the problem in the near future. For digital radio and mobile TV, the so-called solution that is often being referred to is called DVB T2. I have argued that this is an immature standard without available receivers, that it will be very costly to build such a network and that current DVB-T networks will have to be replanned and possibly rebuilt. In other words, not the way to go. DVB T2 as the solution for digital radio and mobile TV is just another biased claim made by false prophets.

The solution is already here. It is called Eureka 147, more commonly known as DMB/DAB/DAB+. It is being used in over 40 countries around the globe, and over 500 million people will be covered by such signals by the end of the year. Germany is only the last country to launch such services, something that will happen through a soft launch in four days and officially one month later.

DVB T2 is not the way to go. It's not here now and may never be here in a form that will prove useful. And telecom networks won't do the trick either, as I have repeatedly covered earlier.

Radio futurologist James Cridland has written a piece looking at DVB T2-Lite. He claims that there are numerous issues with DVB T2 and that DMB/DAB/DAB+ is the way to go, not least due to it's flexibility which opens up for digital radio, mobile TV, additional services (i.e. live traffic information and interactivity) and a combination with the internet.

Cridland's post is well worth a read:

DVB-T2-Lite – a case of the BBC reinventing the wheel?

The Egyptian Switch

A random traffic scene in Alexandria.

Taking a long distance taxi in Egypt can be very cheap. At least if you are Egyptian or you can haggle reasonably well. I recently took a taxi from El Salloum (on the Egyptian side of the Libyan border) to Alexandria, a distance of 510 kilometers. That set me back 350 Egyptian pounds (59 USD), from a random taxi I encountered just after passing customs. I must say that was remarkably cheap, even for Egypt. It is, after all a 5-6 hour drive. During my visit to Egypt I also took long distance taxis two other times (from Sharm el Sheikh to Dahab and back again, 90 kilometers each direction), paying 250 from the airport in Sharm and 150 back again (these places are much more touristy than El Salloum, hence a much higher price per kilometer - although I may have also been ripped off in Sharm or been very lucky in El Salloum).

However, all three times I was introduced to what I ended up calling 'the Egyptian switch.' After getting into the car, the driver naturally starts driving towards the destination. But he (I have still not seen any female taxi drivers in Egypt) is always on the lookout for another car going to the same destination. In Egypt you can tell which city cars are registered in by the license plate, something that give the drivers a clue. If your driver sees someone that is likely to be going to your destination, he let the car pass and the uses his horn, waves out the window and/or flashes his lights. The car that just passed will in many cases stop and your driver will jump out and walk over to the other car. A minute later, you are ordered over into the other car and will continue to your agreed destination.

The Egyptian switch explained
1) You agree on a price to your destination with a taxi driver.
2) The taxi ride starts.
3) The taxi driver will scout for other drivers going to the same destination and eventually stop someone.
4) Your driver will ask whether the driver of the other car (and this can be any car, not necessarily a taxi) can take you to your destination against some money.
5) If this is OK, your driver will  negotiate a sum of money as compensation for the trouble. Of course, he will usually keep most (at least half) himself, then offer the remaining fare that you have agreed to pay for the trip to the new driver. The new driver will not know how much you have paid.
6) You will pay your original driver what you have agreed upon and then change vehicles.
7) The original driver will give some of your money to the new driver.
8) You will continue your journey to your destination, but in a new vehicle and with a new driver.
9) You will arrive at your destination and will not have to pay any more money. The money issue has already been sorted out between the drivers.

Do note that your second driver may ask you (given that you can actually communicate) how much you paid originally. You may want to keep quiet about this, as likelihood is that the new driver will realize that he has received much less than what you have paid. This may be especially annoying to the new driver if the Egyptian switch happens at an early stage of the trip.

This may actually be a good thing
Why can this be a good thing? It is certainly environmentally friendly. The first driver can turn around again early during the trip and will not have to make an unnecessary trip. It is a little like car pooling and it saves petrol. It also divides the money you are paying to more people. Chances are high (or almost certain) that you have been overcharged (petrol only costs around 40 cents per litre in Egypt), so the money goes further and contributes with income to more families. You may also meet someone who actually knows your destinations, something that can be helpful when on vacation. And in all three cases that I experienced this, the new vehicle was much nicer than the first one.

The downside of the Egyptian switch is that your journey is slightly interrupted and that you may feel uncomfortable by being taken from the middle of nowhere by an unknown driver. You can always refuse to go into a new vehicle if you don't like the new car or the new driver. After all you have agreed a price and a destination with driver number 1. But you may have luck with driver number 2. Two of the three times I ended up with a new driver that spoke much better English than the first one. And vacation is about experiencing something new, so why not go for it.

A natural question is, can the Egyptian switch inspire or be parallelled by i.e. an internet service? Can we do things smarter online?

The Bias of the Internet

Sheep just follow uncritically. You shouldn't. CC licensed by Fredrik Questier.  

If you are looking for a certain place, i.e. a park, in a new town, likelihood is that you wil ask someone you meet on the street where you should go to get there. Say that the person, let's call her Sahara, would give you different answers based on your appearance, clothing or presumed interests.

If Sahara thought you looked fit, she may tell you a longer route than she would tell an overweight person as she figured you would be up for the extra excercise (or she might do the opposite to help the heavier person burn some calories). If she recognized your clothing as expensive, she might tell you to go to the posh restaurant on the opposite side of the park instead of to the more interesting sculptures on the other side. Or if you were carrying a backpack she'd rather send you to the cheap but dodgy hostel nearby the park.

After all, it should be straight forward. You are asking how to get to the park. Why can't she just tell you, and everyone else that asks, the one and only fastest way to the entrance?

Well, Sahara acts just like an increasingly number of websites, including Google, Facebook, Bing and Yahoo. They automatically personalize the info you get to see based on your behaviour. And they don't ask whether you like this practice or not, they just do it because they think that they are helping. Just like Sahara did, although she was just guessing. The websites do actually know a lot about your previous surfing behaviour. Some people would say that they are indeed helping. Eli Pariser would not, as he tells The Independent newspaper.

- The technology that was used to target ads is now being used to target content. It's one thing being shown products you might be interested in, but when that's shaping what information you see, it has a much broader effect. My main concerns are that it gives individuals a distorted view of the world because they don't know this filtering is happening or on what basis it's happening, and therefore they don't know what they're not seeing. It's a problem, more broadly, for democracy because it's like auto-propaganda. It indoctrinates us with our own beliefs and makes it less likely that we'll run into opposing viewpoints or ideas.

The Independent didn't decide to talk to him for no reason. He has written a book about the issue: 'The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You.'

Personalization
More and more websites try to help you by giving you information that they believe you'll be interested in. They call it personalization. I'd say this can be a very bad thing in many settings. It may certainly benefit you to hear about the kind of films that certain of your friends have recommended or commented on as you "always" like the same films as they do. But what happens to your own opinions if everything you are being served is shaped by someone else to an even greater degree than before?

Films may be an innocent example. How about when it comes to news, politics or other more serious issues?Neutrality is lost, and you are influenced more strongly than before based on previous behaviour and what your friends on Facebook or Twitter say or do.

You can certainly argue that this filtering is already happening. After all, people buy our watch certain newspapers and TV programmes based on their preferences. But two persons buying the same paper will at least be presented the same information in the same manner and in the same order. With the Internet, this is no longer necessarily the case.

This is, if nothing else, something that is worth being aware of. You may furthermore not want to base your information gathering and opinion shaping exclusively on the internet. Because what comes up there may be very biased indeed. You are not a sheep, don't act like one. Not even if Sahara tells you to.

'The Filter Bubble: What the Internet is Hiding from You' by Eli Pariser was published by Viking in Britain earlier this week.

Who Did NOT Watch This?



You could have seen this little lighthouse live on NRK2 or online. Or did you?  CC licensed by NRKbeta.no.

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation NRK's Hurtigruten project which shows the voyage from Bergen to Kirkenes, an almost 6 day long live TV documentary from a postal/passenger/cruise ship, has drawn attention world wide. I have recently covered the unique combination of two screens (one for television, one for the internet). NRK's web statistics show visitors from 176 countries. That is amazing!

Click here or read on to see which countries were not interested.

Not surprisingly, the top ten list of web users by country is as follows:

1. Norway (57,9% of the users)
2. Denmark (7,5%)
3. USA (6,5%)
4. Germany (3,6%)
5. Great Britain (3,5%)
6. France (2,9%)
7. Netherlands (2,5%)
8. Sweden (2,5%)
9. Canada (1,2%)
10. Russland (0,9%)

All of these countries have, of various reasons, close connections to Norway. They account for 89% of the total. But the remaining 11% spread out to another 166 countries. And the real question is: Which countries were not at all interested? (And why?)

There are 192 UN countries in the world (193 from July 9 when Southern Sudan becomes independent). I also count the Vatican, Kosovo, Palestine, Western Sahara and Taiwan as countries, totalling 197 (soon 198). That leaves only 21 countries from where no one watched the greatest sea journey in the world. North Korea goes without saying, unless Kim Jong-Il himself (aka. "Supreme Leader") suddenly took interest himself (only the top leadership in the country has access to the internet). With North Korea as a given, 20 remain. Before continuing to the answer (link below), please feel free to guess as a comment below.

My guess of 20 countries is as follows (and I still haven't seen the answer):

Bhutan, Central African Republic, China (a wild guess, but nrk.no is blocked there following the Nobel Peace Prize 2010), Comoros, Congo Brazzaville, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, Iran, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Myanmar, Nauru, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Somalia, Tonga, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Western Sahara.

Click here for the answer
I have now checked the statistics, and I was wrong on some of them. How about you? Please feel free to comment below on your suggestions. And find the answer here.

Those Left Behind

49 countries did not have any registered web TV viewers from "Hurtigruten." CC licensed by NRKbeta.no.

Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation NRK reported that 176 countries visited their web site to follow Hurtigruten. My big question was, from which countries did no one visit nrk.no/hurtigruten to watch the stunning scenery of the Norwegian coast?

It turned out that the list of 176 contains some "wannabe countries," at least according to my definition of countries (192 UN countries + the Vatican, Kosovo, Palestine, Western Sahara and Taiwan, totalling 197 (Southern Sudan will be added as number 198 on July 9)).

Some, in this case, means 28. These are "wannabe countries," meaning that they belong to another independent country or they're just own IP ranges. The real number of  countries from which people have been following "Hurtigruten" is in other words 148. Still a hell of a lot, and extremelly impressive. NRK has with this truly multimedial project really put down the foundation for a new genre. The 28 countries that shouldn't, in my opinion, be counted as countries are, as follows:

28 wannabes
Aruba (Dutch)
Bermuda (British)
BQ (dunno where this is, own IP, at least)
British Virgin Islands (British)
Cayman Islands (British)
CW (unknown, own IP)
Faeroe Islands (Danish)
French Guyana (French)
French Polynesia (French)
GG (not me, but a cool name for a "country..." - own IP)

Gibraltar (British)
Greenland (Dansih)
Guadeloupe  (French)
Guam (American)
Hong Kong (Chinese)
IM (unknown, own IP)
JE (unknown, own IP)
Macau (Chinese)
Martinique (French)
New Caldonia (French)

Norfolk Island (Australian)
Other Europe (who knows...)
Puerto Rico (American)
Reserved (well...)
Reunion (French)
St. Pierre and Miquelon (French)
SX (unknown, own IP)
Turks and Caicos Islands (British)

The 49 that were left behind
197 countries minus 176 countries equals 21. 21 plus 28 equals 49. That means that 49 "real" countries have been unlucky enough to not have any viewers of "Hurtigruten, minute by minute" to tell the tale to the rest. Those countries are:

Antigua and Barbuda
Benin
Bhutan
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cape Verde
Cantral African Republic
Chad
Comoros
Congo Brazzaville

Cote d'Ivoire
Djibouti
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Gabon
Grenada
Guinea
Haiti
Kiribati
Kosovo

Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Maldives
Marshall Islands
Micronesia
Mongolia
Nauru
North Korea
Palau

Papua New Guinea
Rwanda
Samoa
Sao Tome and Principe
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Solomon Islands
Somalia
Swaziland
Timor-Leste (East Timor)

Togo
Tonga
Turkmenistan
Tuvalu
Vanuatu
The Vatican
Western Sahara
Yemen
Zambia

In other words, mainly countries from Africa and the Pacific with a few Asian and North American ones thrown in. Plus Kosovo and the Vatican (probably covered by the IPs of Serbia and Italy). Perhaps not really surprising given the lack of infrastructure, lack of Norwegian tourists and lack of interest in local media.

The top ten countries? Read about them here.

Half of Norway and a Voyage of Two Screens



Typical view from M/S Nordnorge. CC licensed by NRKbeta.no.

 Norway's five and a half day long Coastal Voyage is broadcast live minute by minute on Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation NRK's national TV channel NRK2 and being streamed 24/7 on the website nrk.no/hurtigruten. It is one of the world's longest, and slowest moving, live broadcast ever. But quite possibly also the most beautiful.

What started as a crazy idea turned into a crazy multimedial concept on TV and the internet. But crazy is good. Norwegians love it. The first weekend, almost 2.6 million people tuned in to NRK2 to watch parts of the voyage. That is more than half the population of Norway (almost 5 million). And many thousands more followed the journey via web TV. 46% of those were watching the streamed journey from outside Norway.

NRKs Head of Research, Mr. Kristian Tolonen, breaks the numbers down a little. 180,000 people have, on average, been watching 24/7 since the start last Thursday. The peak was on Sunday evening, 15 minutes before midnight, when 692,000 was watching M/S Nordnorge (M/S NorthernNorway) enter the fjord of Trollfjorden, one of the highlights of the journey.

Thousands and thousands of people wave at the ship from the shore, other boats, bridges, piers and mountains. Many of the spectators are also shown in close up on national television, something quite a few realise after being told so via mobile phones by television viewers at home. Their typical reaction? Double speeded waving.

Two screens
Judging by comments on Twitter, Facebook and nrk.no/hurtigruten, a lot of people are watching the journey on TV while communicating with others via the web. People are praising NRK, the license funded broadcaster, for daring to do such a thing. And many are saying that they are now happy to pay the license fee. That is not usually uttered loudly by many. My guess is that the number of people paying the license fee wil increase quite a bit the next days and weeks. Around 10% do currently not pay.

The fact that the programme, if we can call it such, is so long and slow moving with continuous spectacular views, cheering people, orchestras playing and choires singing in every port makes it ideal for dialogue. This is a social experience, perfect for two screens. People are watching their beloved coast together on broadcasted television, and they have a need to share and discuss these moments, often in quite personal ways, via the internet. Whether it is with friends or strangers does not seem to matter.

The official Facebook group of the voyage has over 47,000 fans, whereas several of the destinations have "trended" on Twitter.

The concept is intriguing, extremelly fascinating and highly addictive. Some people claim to have watched 72 hours without sleep, others sleep on the sofa in front of the television set to miss as little as possible. This journey seems to make Norwegians extremelly proud of their country. There are dozens of Tweets and Facebook messages from people sharing that they are crying due to the strong emotion. Others proclaim this to be the best TV, or anti TV as some people call it, that they have EVER watched (usually followed by a number of exclamation marks). It may very well be the start of a different genre of programming, unless this is something that only appeals to Norwegians. It is about watching together, knowing that everyone else is sharing and taking part in a social setting which involves the sharing of impressions. Only broadcast television can make people come together like this. But not without the help of social media. Combination is key.

And it ain't over yet. You can follow the journey live on nrk.no/hurtigruten until Wednesday morning, June 22, Norwegian time.



Meeting M/S Kong Harald, a sister ship. CC licensed by NRKbeta.no.



Why Telecom Networks Need a Little Help

Telenor, Norway's biggest telecom operator is struggling to deliver the capacity needed by their share of the 5 million people in the country. They are simply put out of capacity. Or to use their own words:

- We have a capacity challenge, Ragnar Kårhus, CEO of Telenor Norway said at a press conference today.

The press conference came after the second network failure in a week. Last week, the telecom network of Norway's biggest telecom operator was down for 12-18 hours in most of Norway. An embarrased mobile network operator voluntarily decided not to charge the 18 million USD they should have made from disgruntled customers the three next days following their little crisis. And then the network went down again today. Not as severely, but nevertheless. Are they experiencing a Friday curse?

3 billion American dollars
The three days of lost revenues amounted, according to themselves, to 18,1 million USD. This was during a weekend and a bank holiday when traffic is lower than during a normal day. 6 million USD a day still means 2,2 billion USD per year in revenues, probably closer to 3 billion given that usage is higher on weekdays. Not bad for the 5500 transmitters needed to cover Norway.

Telenor do not know for sure what really caused the problem, but being out of capacity is something that they should get used to. Internet traffic more than doubles every year. They are no longer encouraging data hungry services such as mobile TV, and they are moving away from all you can eat plans. But is that enough when more and more people are getting their first smart phone and 3G enabled tablet?

Most experts predict that mobile TV and mobile video will generate most of the data traffic in the years to come. I have heard figures that mobile TV and video will account for everything from 50% to 91% of all data traffic. How about relieving the networks and providing a better and more reliable service to all customers by porting all national live TV and radio to digital broadcasting technologies? How about starting to sell mobile phones with such technologies built in (as they do in Korea and Japan)? In Norway and over 40 countries on 5 continents, that means built in DMB/DAB/DAB+, in the US we're talking ATSC M/H and HD Radio while China boasts CMMB for mobile TV and DAB/DAB+ for digital radio.

Emergency proof?
With heavy data usage taking it's toll on networks, what can we do in case of emergencies? Even on every New Years Eve we see that text messages take hours to get through to recipents due to a widespread habit of sending happy new year messages to each other. What if there is an emergency and everyone needs to be notified? A telecom network will go down. A broadcasting network will not. And broadcasting networks can also be used to send messages and even maps or detailed instructions. To everyone. Simultaneously and instantly. Without the risk of going out of capacity or being taken down due to heavy usage. That is something to consider in these times of increasing reoccurences of natural disasters and terror.

Broadcasting and the internet make each other better. But when will Telenor understand that? Maybe not until governments will tell them that they have to.

The Internet is as Dirty as Planes

Planes and the internet emit similar amounts of carbon.

I travel a lot. Often by airplanes. That puts me at the receiving end of a fair amount of jokes regarding pollution. Planes pollute a lot, is the mantra.

So does the internet. According to the Vancouver Sun, each web search cause between 1 and 10 grams of carbon to enter the athmosphere. Perhaps not a lot on its own, but through billions and billions of searches, facebook updates, page impressions, video streams and sent emails a day, that adds up. The internet now uses between 2 and 3 percent of the world's electricity, the same as the aviation industry.

Planes do not pollute more just because you can actually see the exhaust on the sky. Luckily both the IT and the aviation industry spend a lot of resources on improvements in order to become greener.

Of course, this doesn't let me off the hook. I fly a lot and I use the Internet a lot, making me a double perpetrator. I have even used the internet while flying, but at least I didn't have a beef sandwich in the air. Meat production is worse than flying and the internet combined. It accounts for almost a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. 

Intel and Cisco Look To Broadcasting

Under a CC license by Thomas Hawk.

The BBC writes that the number of internet connected devices will explode to over 15 billion, twice the worlds population, by 2015. They point to research done by Cisco which believes that television and video services will continue to dominate internet traffic, and that one million minutes of video will be watched every second. That is a hell of a lot of data. Let's say that the average bandwidth is 2000Kbps. Many will prefer HD quality at a 4-6Mbps, others will have to settle for much worse video quality at a lower bandwidth due to less bandwidths being available from their ISP. An average bandwidth of 2000Kbps is not taken out of the blue. Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) has the most popular web TV service in Norway.  Their average streamed bandwidth per user is 2500Kbps, although the internet were in for some trouble at the web tv player's record breaking moment, with average bandwidths going down to 1500Kbps.

One million minutes at 2000Kbps is almost 14 Terrabyte of data every second. Or 111Tbps (Terabit per second). Slightly higher than my internet connection at home.

If added up, that means 1.15 Exabyte per day, or 420 Exabyte per year. Cisco's calculations are however based on an average bandwidth of around half at 1024Kbps. We are in that case looking at 215EB per year.

Exawhat?
One Exabyte is the same as one quintillion bytes. As if that helps anyone's understanding of it. I'll leave explanations to Wikipedia. The bottom line is that an Exabyte is an enorumous amount of data. 215 or 420 of it in almost unimagninable.

Cisco is naturally worried about how to be able to deliver infrastructure that can cope with such vast amounts of data.

"The most important question we face is how to manage all this traffic intelligently," Suraj Shetty, the company's vice president for global marketing tells the BBC.

One obvious answer is to use broadcasting technologies for all live radio and TV content. In combination with traditional internet services, obviously. That means that many of the 15 billion internet connected devices out there should have a chipset that also supports broadcasting. Is that going to happen?

Intel jumps on the broadcasting bandwagon
Well, a week ago, the worlds biggest processor and chipset manufacturer Intel, aquired SiPort, a company that specializes in broadcasting chipsets.

SiPort writes the following on their webpage:

"Digital radio is poised to become an important ingredient for handsets and other mobile devices as broadcast radio transitions from analog to digital. Intel’s acquisition of SiPort enhances our abilities to continue as the leading provider of low power, single-chip CMOS solutions enabling wide spread adoption of broadcast digital radio. SiPort’s digital radio expertise and solutions will leverage Intel’s market and technology leadership to provide best-in-class digital radio solutions." 

SiPort produces chipsets for the broadcasting technologies of HD Radio (used in the US) and DMB/DAB/DAB+ which is used in over 40 countries on five continents.

The internet is already struggling at peak times, something that the entire industry knows and understands. Some of the biggest players out there is now pointing to broadcasting as one solution to load unnecessary traffic off the infrastructure, optimizing it's usage for everything else out there on the internet. More and more people are starting to understand that combination is key. That is good news to all of us that cherish the services and possibilities given to us by the internet.

Double Distribution, Just Don’t Do It

The next Eurovision Song Contest finals will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan. CC licensed.


How can we best utilize frequencies or bandwidth? The top trick is to get rid of double distribution. Why distribute the same signals twice? If we stop doing such, we will make those frequencies and that bandwidth available to others. Most industrial countries have realized this when it comes to television. They switched off the analogue signals and replaced them with digital ones. Norway is doing the same for radio in 2017. Other countries will follow also when it comes to radio.

But the examples of analogue and digital television and radio are not the only relevant ones. We are also seeing a lot of double distribution divided between broadcasting and the Internet. Some people, usually titled consultants, think that the Internet will be able to take over for broadcasting. This is a wrong, misunderstood and distorted view. Why?

First or bust
The final of ESC (Eurovision Song Contest) gathers hundreds of millions of million simultaneous viewers. Very few of those viewers would have been satisfied if they had to watch a recorded version of the events after it went on air live. Sports and news are other examples of such events or programmes, where a recorded version in most cases just won’t do. Just think  of the Super Bowl, British royal weddings and the Olympics. Premieres of popular TV programmes also make people want to watch it when it first airs, although they can be equally enjoyed later (but being first or doing something first is something people often strive for, as exemplified through the lines outside cinemas when the newest Star Wars or Harry Potter movie premieres or outside shops when a new iPhone launches.

Even with giant TV successes such as ESC, the latest update on the bin Laden killing or the World Cup final an estimated 30-40 per cent of television viewers watch channels showing other programmes. You can't find the event which virtually everyone watching television wants to watch. Maybe except for the moon landing.

To upgrade the Internet to be able to handle such volumes of viewers may never be realistically possible speaking from a technical point of view. (There is also a range of other reasons why the Internet should not be the only distribution channel of live TV and radio.) Broadcasting will in other words always (at least in many, many years to come) be needed to technically distribute huge televised events. That leaves a natural question. Why even bother to upgrade the Internet infrastructure to be able to handle such volumes? To make it capable of managing peak times (if peak times are defined as being able to deliver television to everyone) is costly and not necessary.

Bandwith explosion even without TV and radio
After all, the Internet even struggles at times to deliver properly on normal surfing. And that is before we have even seen any major cloud computing efforts. Eventually billions of stationary and mobile devices will be depending on each other and centralized servers in order to deliver services. That means a lot of extra data. And that data increase comes in addition to the increased surfing in the population. And they won't start surfing less data hungry services anytime soon.

I am not saying that people should be banned from watching television live via the Internet. People should be able to enjoy their favourites from their preferred device. But broadcasting will always handle the majority of such distribution, let us rather expand and enhance the Internet so that it can do those things it is created to do, only better.

That will also mean that the Internet can deliver live television to more people, but should it? Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) pushed it to the limits during the World Skiing Championship earlier this year, compromising those people out there that want, need and depend on the Internet for other purposes.

Greed may be good, but for live television and radio, solidarity is what we need.

Digitalized Tunnels are Safer

Creative Commons photo by Peter Fiskerstrand.

The government in Norway has decided that FM will be switched off in 2017. But what does that mean for the radio coverage in road tunnels? Norway has over 1,200 tunnels, 500 of which are longer than 500 meters.

180 of those tunnels do currently have FM coverage for NRK P1, some also carry P4, the biggest commercial radio station. 30 tunnels do currently have DAB coverage. By 2017 the 180 tunnels now covered by FM will need to be covered by DAB. The Norwegian Road Authority does however have a bigger goal in mind. By 2020, all the 500 tunnels of more than 500 meters in length will be covered by DAB/DAB+ and possibly also by DMB.

Why is The Road Authority so keen on DAB? Because DAB doubles as an emergency system. In case of a car crash, accident, fire or similar the operator who follows the tunnels through video cameras will override all radio stations inside the tunnel and read out potentially life saving instructions to drivers and passengers. If the receivers also have a screen, additional info such as maps showing the nearest exit or the the nearest emergency phone can be shown.

Where is this stated? The Norwegian Road Authority has published a manual on Road Tunnels, Manual 021E. The English version was published in 2004. There is a revised version from 2010 with some minor updates, although this version is only available in Norwegian. The manual is very detailed and is considered so well written that it is also being used by several American states for road tunnels and by the Norwegian Railroad Authority for railway tunnels.

The relevant chapters are 602.3 Radio equipment, 602.31 Communication equipment and 602.32 Broadcasting equipment with "interruption facilities." The regulations stated in such an official manual have been made are part of the law and must be fulfilled.

That means that Norway's many long tunnels will be safer than before. The emergency system does however require that the radio (or DMB player) is actually turned on with the volume on (it cannot turn the radio on for you). Information encouraging drivers to keep their receivers on should therefore ideally be posted outside all long tunnels. It is not known if such road signs will be put up.

The Norwegian Road Authority is required by the EU (even though Norway's not a member) to have such an emergency system in place, but The Norwegian Road Authority has imposed tougher rules on themselves than what is being required. The EU directive calls for such emergency system in tunnels above 1,000 meters of length, not 500. Norway does, in other words, not only do what the EU requires them to, but even more for the sake of safety.

The EU directive?

DIRECTIVE 2004/54/EC OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

AND OF THE COUNCIL

of 29 April 2004

on minimum safety requirements for tunnels in the

Trans-European Road Network.

Chapter 2.16 deals directly with what has been covered here:

2.16. Communication systems

2.16.1. Radio re-broadcasting equipment for emergency service use shall be installed in all tunnels

longer than 1 000 m with a traffic volume higher than 2 000 vehicles per lane.

2.16.2. Where there is a control centre, it must be possible to interrupt radio re-broadcasting of

channels intended for tunnel users, if available, in order to give emergency messages.

Why FM Must Go

I want a good selection of radio stations and merchandise in shops.
This little shop on wheels is in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. 

The Internet cannot substitute broadcasting as a distribution method for radio. I have covered this before: A Collapse of the Internet Narrowly Avoided - Why 4G is Hyped - 21 Reasons Why FM is Almost History - Internet Radio Expensive in France Too.

So has radio futurologist James Cridland: 3G - radio's future? - 4G for radio? No thanks.

Radio needs broadcasting. FM is broadcasting. Is radio via FM too valuable to society to be switched off and substituted by DAB/DAB+?

Before answering this question, let me ask and answer some others. Was analogue TV too valuable to society to be switched off and substituted by digital TV? No, this has already happened in most western countries. Why? Because television viewers demanded more channels of higher quality and analogue TV was too expensive and not advanced enough to provide this. And people watch more television than they watch radio in most western countries (182 vs. 101 minutes per day in Norway). Did viewers complain? Hardly at all.

So, how about radio? The FM frequencies are full. That means that there is no more room for additional radio channels. FM is very expensive due to high power consumption (one transmitter is needed per channel) and a lot of transmitters required to cover large areas. But maybe the existing radio channels are enough, maybe people are happy with the current selection. If that is the case, maybe FM is so valuable that it cannot be switched off.

But this way of arguing is like speaking for maintaining the shop system that has always been present in a communist country. The food selection consists of two kinds of cheese (both from the same valley), three kinds of bread (all white), one kind of butter (who needs low fat anyway?) and a couple salami types (made by a mixture of animals you don't even want to be able to name).

Who is satisfied by this? Well, the customers have never know that French cheese, brown bread and baguettes, Irish butter and hundreds of kinds of sandwich meat from a range of animals even exist. They have therefore never complained very much (unless the food was outdated or tasted worse than normal). Neither has the farmers providing the cheese or the bakeries making the bread. They have always seen very little competition. That is good for business. They are virtually guaranteed a profit, no matter how low the quality of their food. Why would they want to change this?

Let the fight begin
Competition forces better quality. That is also true for radio.

In Norway, Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) had a monopoly on television and radio until the early 90s. Most people (even those of us employed by NRK) think that the quality of programmes improved greatly after commercial competitors entered the scene. After all, people suddenly had a choice. That means that they don't have to pick your product or programme anymore.

I would like the same to happen again to radio. More frequencies. More choice. More possibilities for good radio, new related services, interactive radio and on demand too. And I live in a country of less than 5 million people. Imagine what the situation is like in other, more populous countries. Where the market for new top quality radio stations with talented on-air personalities may be blooming, but where there are no available frequencies.

In order to make more frequencies available and enable a fair competitive environment, FM needs to be switched off in a range of countries. Not only in Norway. So that there aren't possibilities for "communist shops" anywhere anymore. Not even where the listeners are too busy listening to their existing channels to even bother to try the new ones.

Radio channels should fight for their listeners. Before fighting you have to train. A lot. Those who train become better. Those who train the most usually win the fights. If both sides train equally much you get good fights. Let the fights begin, on even ground. Switch off FM. Give even better radio to the people.

So, is radio via FM too valuable to society to be switched off? Not more than "small communist shops." They are valuable to society if located inside a museum. The same is the case with FM which should continue to exist in a museum, where it is heading and where it very soon belongs.

Nauru - The Run Around Country



Nauru International Airport doubles as the country's only road.


I hate having to get visas in advance. Of course not to do so, may cause problems. Visitors to Nauru are required to get the visa in advance, but I was studying Mandarin in Taipei at the time and not too keen on going through the slow process of sending my application and passport off to get it sorted. So I relied on travel related luck and a big and very innocent smile. It has worked before.


The coolest boarding pass I've seen. Made by cardboard.

 But before was before. This time such a strategy caused problems in Brisbane, from where I was going to fly out from on Our Airline, the only airline flying into Nauru. I was checking in, and the woman behind the counter obviously asked for my visa.

- Do I need a visa? I thought I could get one when landing.

- No, you cannot.


- Really? Are you sure? I have purchased the ticket ages ago, and I have really been looking forward to this trip. Is there no way of getting around this? (Very lame, yes, I know. And my cheesy smile probably didn't do much good either, will have to practice on that later.)

- I am sure. I have worked here for over ten years. 

- Damn (uttered very silently)!


- I will see what I can do, but do not get your hopes up.

Double damn.

She walked over to another counter and called someone from a phone there. It seemed like a very long conversation, given the possible denial of service I was facing in the very near future.

She came back over and started typing something on the computer.

- So...is it going to be possible for me to go?

- Hmm. Yes, it looks like it. You're lucky!

She meant it. And I was. I even got a window seat.



Fishing conference

The plane, a very old 737, was almost full. Surprisingly so, until I realised that they were throwing an international fishing conference on Nauru. Not too international, though. Most participants seemed to be from Taiwan (Nauru has acknowledged Taiwan as a country - most countries have not as China requires countries to pick us (China) or them (Taiwan)), Solomon Islands and Australia. Then again, not many people have even heard about Nauru, the world's third smallest country (after the Vatican and Monaco), let alone imagined that it is possible to actually go there.


Nauru has nice views.

 I arrived Nauru (INU) late at night, and it seemed like the entire village (or country) had arrived to greet everyone arriving. Some of those there, it emerged, didn't really have a choice. The runway is also a part of the 19 kilometer long road around the island, and the road is blocked every time a plane arrives (which is not very often). Instead of driving the other way around the island, they rather check out who is coming from the "mainland" (aka. Australia, Tuvalu or Solomon Islands) before continuing.

Checked in luggage is overrated. It takes extra time, constrains mobility and gets lost every once in a while. I usually only travel with hand luggage, so also this time, making me the first person to leave the luggage room of one of the smallest airport buildings I have seen (and I am from Naustdal, a small village in Norway with a the very small neighbouring airport of Førde bringeland (FDE)).




Reassuring.



The serious looking customs guy behind a tiny wooden counter looked at me for one second, called me over and asked without hesitation:

- Are you the tourist?

The scene was set. It was only me, the locals and some other foreign people working with fish. No other tourists? I was thrilled. And then he smiled.

- Welcome to Nauru!

Of course my non-existing visa meant that the custom guy had to hold on to my passport until I was gonna leave. I wasn't worried. Crime can't be high on an island with less than 9,000 people, 19 kilometers of roads and nowhere to hide.
 

Run around a country

So, what do you do on Nauru? Well, it's a pretty circular island, surrounded by coral reefs. With, as mentioned, a road running around it. A road running around it. How many countries can claim having the same? And I had never ran around a country before. Now, I have. Nauru is just south of the Equator though, so running around the island just after lunch does not come recommended. Now, I know. I have never sweat that much since I for the first time ate a phall curry at Balti Curries in the main street of Falmouth, Cornwall in 1997.  But I made it. Just to arrive back at the hotel to discover that the water was switched off during the day. There is not much freshwater on Nauru.

I air dried pretty fast and picked the computer furthest from other people at the Internet cafe afterwards.


On my way around Nauru. Excuse my sweat.

A choice of two
The hotel situation on Nauru is rather limited. Od'n Aiwo Hotel is the cheaper hotel "downtown" while there is a more expensive "resort" on the other side of the island. The latter has a bar and hot water and is on a beach, but I still decided to go central. There was no hot water, and a woman visiting for fishing conference was in my room upon arrival (all the doors were open and she liked my room better than hers, so she tried to nick it), but there were no major issues, really.

The main problem was finding it. I arrived at night, and without any taxis I decided to walk through the dark. That was working out great until a guy in a pickup stopped and asked if I wanted a ride. He and two teenagers had picked up a relative coming by the plane, so the car was full, but not the back. I jumped in.

- Where are you going?

- I'm going to the hotel. (I couldn't remember the name. But I mean, who can remember Od'n Aiwo in the middle of the night anyway?)

- No problem, he said in a slight American accent and sped off.

Very friendly of him to pick up a total stranger in complete darkness. But then again, no crime to talk of. And I was the single person. The four of them could have trashed me if I were up to no good. The only problem was that he took me to the wrong hotel. Not his fault, of course. I was saved by the local bus driver who arrived 25 minutes later with the other plane passengers. He drove me to Od'n Aiwo free of charge.

- Enjoy your stay, he shouted after letting me off.

So, what does the central hotel mean`? "Central" means a choice of one shop, a couple of bottle shops, an Internet cafe, a police station, the city hall and two restaurants. Coming from Naustdal, I immediately felt at home.




These shoes are made for walking. Not running.
They never left the country.

 I tried both restaurants, one Chinese and one, well, let's call it non-ethnic. The Chinese will get the Michelin star of the country thanks to decent food and big portions. It's on the first floor of the hotel. There's nothing that even resembles a wine list, but they'll let you bring beers from the local bottle shop.

  

Wooden x-ray trays. Classic!



There may not be much to do on Nauru, but it is like a stereotypical Pacific island. (Of course it is a Pacific island, but that's not the point.) The beaches are beautiful, so is the water temperature. The food selection is somewhat limited, there's almost no nightlife on offer, but people are very friendly and just being able to run around a country makes it all even more worthwhile. I'll be happy to come again. My Tour de Nauru time might need improving, and that won't happen just after noon. At least I wore sunscreen.