European HD Radio Alliance

Yesterday i was reading an italian blog about radio and i found an interesting news. This blog was talking about an article from a swiss newspaper, they said that in October some european broadcasters 
formed European HD Radio Alliance in order to promote HD Radio in Europe.

HD Radio is an american standard and is the registered trademark for the in-band on-channel (IBOC) technology developed by iBiquity Digital Corporation; it allows stations to simulcast MP3-quality compressed digital audio and traditional analog audio, without changing to new frequency bands.

I tried to look for an official site of this new organization but apparently it doesn't exist (so far).

I found this from Radio Magazine:

Broadcasters Form European HD Radio Alliance
Oct 29, 2007 3:30 PM

Columbia, MD - Oct 29, 2007 - European broadcasters have formed the European HD Radio Alliance, an organization designed to promote and support the deployment of HD Radio technology throughout the continent. The first meeting of the European HD Radio Alliance took place earlier this month in Lucerne, Switzerland. Alliance officials were elected at the meeting:

* Chairman - Juerg Bachmann, Energy Zurich, Switzerland
* Vice Chairman - Andriy Karpiy, First Ukrainian Radio Group, Ukraine
* General Secretary - Markus Ruoss, Ruoss AG und Radio Sunshine, Switzerland
* General Director - Andrea Sentinelli, Europejskie Radio dia Bialorusi, Poland
* Treasurer - Perry Priestley, Ibiquity Digital, USA

"With a number of countries in Europe testing or deploying HD Radio technology, we believe that now is the right time to form an organization to share our experiences and help coordinate our collective marketing efforts," said Bachmann.

The European HD Radio Alliance meeting coincided with the HD Radio Days event in Lucerne. In this year's second annual event, managers of the HD Radio field trial in Central Switzerland hosted more than 200 specialists from 13 countries. HD Radio Days featured presentations from speakers on the regulatory and commercial sides of the broadcast industry who discussed the latest developments in HD Radio broadcasting. HD Radio workshops were also held on topics such as surround-sound, addressability and the electronic program guide.
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Well, what can we say? HD Radio (so far not really successfull, according to the statistics of the audience) is being pushed in Europe.
I'm not a big fan of HD Radio because
1) it's a registered trademark and not an open standard like AM, FM, DAB, DRM
2) it works in band (87,5-108 MHz). Using a standard in a new band (example: DAB+ or DMB in 174-240 MHz) would mean to open the spectrum for new broadcasters (utopia?)

How can HD Radio work in Italy when today analog FM stations in big cities cause interferences to each other? Let's see what the european alliance is going to suggest.