Major highways and nine further cities across Saudi Arabia to benefit from DAB+ upgrade

22.07.2025 by Will Jackson

Saudi Arabia’s DAB+ network is expanding to nine more cities this year, coupled with five projects now underway to cover major highways with DAB+ digital radio. Speaking in a session on 16 July at the ABU-ASBU-WorldDAB Technical Workshop, Eng. Bander Alrasheedi, General Manager of Radio Projects, Saudi Broadcasting Authority, revealed the significant enhancements were expected to be completed by the end of 2025.

“Currently, the network is expanding to nine more cities: Abha, Makkah, Taif, Al-Baha, Jazan, Sakaka, Arar, Najran, and Tabuk. These are linked to a centralised head-end system in Riyadh for synchronised control and service management,” Alrasheedi said.

Seamless coverage

“Following directives from His Royal Highness Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, five projects are also underway to cover Saudi Arabia’s major highways with DAB+ digital radio,” he added. “The projects implement Single Frequency Network (SFN) technology, which improves spectrum efficiency, reduces interference, and provides seamless coverage along highways.” Equipment suppliers include WorldDAB member GatesAir. 

Planned DAB+ coverage in Saudi Arabia by the end of 2025 

Alrasheedi said this year would also see all DAB+ transmission stations connected to the centralised head-end racks in Riyadh using VSAT technology. “This configuration enables centralised control of all transmission stations and facilitates the seamless addition of new radio services or features across the entire DAB+ network,” he said. “Additionally, this approach significantly reduces costs for any future DAB+ transmission stations, as they will only require reception equipment instead of the full set of encoding, multiplexing, and network infrastructure.”

WorldDAB member ITEL Elettronica e Telecomunicazioni supplied equipment for the SBA. Fabio Placidi, Technical Sales Manager, said: “We have provided DAB+ headends in 1+1 configuration, with passive reserve (one for every city), with 12 audio channels. Most of the channels are taken from satellite, the others are local radio services.”

ITEL equipment in Saudi Arabia

In the Technical Workshop, jointly organised by WorldDAB, the Arab States Broadcasting Union (ASBU) and the Asia‑Pacific Broadcasting Union (ABU), Alrasheedi explained that Saudi Arabia’s DAB+ journey began in Riyadh in 2019 with a pilot project It used a 5-kilowatt transmitter, with separate systems for reception, encoding, and multiplexing ensuring full DAB+ compatibility. This project laid the foundation for future expansions.

City expansion

In 2023, the system expanded to Jeddah and Dammam. Each city was equipped with a 5-kilowatt GatesAir transmitter. Separate head-end systems for reception, encoding, and multiplexing were installed to allow local control. In 2024, five more cities — Neom, Hail, Al Madinah, Al Ahsa, and Al Qassim — were activated. Again, each city has separate reception and encoding systems compatible with DAB+.

WorldDAB Project Director, Bernie O’Neill welcomed the news. “We congratulate Saudi Arabia on this year’s rollout and look forward to continuing to work with our friends at the Saudi Broadcasting Authority as the project develops. This forms part of a wider collective upgrade to DAB+ across Arab nations, such as Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, which have well-established DAB+ services, and the current trials in Oman.”

The focus on Saudi Arabia formed part of the annual WorldDAB webinar series, co‑hosted with the Arab States Broadcasting Union and the Asia‑Pacific Broadcasting Union which took place on 15 - 17 July 2025. Videos and presentations from the sessions — where other countries’ DAB+ plans, technical best practices and policy roadmaps were shared — are available on the WorldDAB website.