Currently, they are being tested in New York, Washington, San Francisco, Baltimore and Cincinnati. Each city has a test station which transmits using the IBOC system, while USA Digital Radio has vans driving around and examining how effectively the signal is being received through the use of signal analyzers and prototype digital receivers. USA Digital Radio 's president and CEO Robert Strubel said that the system would be ready in August of 2000 or early to mid 2001. USA Digital Radio is not just working on how to transmit the signal, but how to receive it. It isn't so much as how to receive it actually, but more how to do it cheaply.
Digital radio can only be a success if the public can afford to listen to it.
Of course, no new technology starts off cheap. To help bring down the price, USA Digital Radio is working with Texas Instruments, who usually makes calculators, to create new computer chips and other electronics that would make a digital receiver more affordable. USA Digital Radio is however, in a rush. Digital Radio Express and Lucent Technologies are two other companies working on their own IBOC systems in an attempt to win the digital race. Hopefully, since V is the pioneer of this technology, they will have enough of a head start that they will complete the system first.