Norway has become the first country in the world to start phasing out the FM radio signal in favour of Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB).

The switch off, which will take place gradually region by region, began on Wednesday morning on the edge of the Arctic circle in the northernmost city of Bodø. It was broadcast live on Norwegian television.

The Norwegian government has said the cost savings, which it estimates will be around 200m Norwegian kroner (£19m) a year, will let broadcasters invest more in programming, and give listeners a better and more reliable sound that will be more easily receivable in a country with lots of mountains and rocks.

Norway has long felt the disadvantage – and the expense – of getting FM signals to a relatively small population of 5.25 million spread around a landscape shaped by fjords and mountains. It has already turned off its long and medium-wave transmitters. Community radio and smaller local radio stations will continue to broadcast on FM until 2022, after which licences will be reviewed.

The government decided that with 70% of Norwegian households already tuning in digitally it was time to phase out the dated technology, which it said costs eight times more than DAB. Norway has 26 DAB or DAB+ (a more advanced version) channels, including the five on the FM spectrum that are soon to be removed.

But the transition has faced a considerable amount of scepticism, with many listeners complaining in Bodø that their radio reception was poor.

“This morning I put my DAB radio on and it had a very glitchy sound,” said Lasse Marhaug, a sound artist and composer. “And digitial glitching is not as warm as an FM crackle. It made me think maybe it’s not such a good idea. In Norway we’re so keen to be first with everything, I wonder if we’re not going into this too fast.”

Elderly Norwegians who are particularly dependent on the radio, have been most vocal about the expense and hassle of having to replace old FM sets and first generation DAB sets which will no longer work on the new DAB+ system.

Up to 2.3 million car users have no DAB sets at all, and many fishermen for whom radio is vital, are also said to be ill-equipped. Critics have warned that emergency traffic messages – often vital in Norway’s inclement winters – may go unheard.

Motorists have been bombarded with offers to either upgrade their analogue sets using a 1,500 kroner (£143) adapter or to buy a new DAB radio for around 4,000 kroner.

In a poll conducted by the daily newspaper Dagbladet, around two-thirds of Norwegians said the government was acting too fast. Much of the discussion has centred on the elderly and fears that they could be left isolated because they have neither the money nor the technical knowhow to make the transition. DAB sets for the home cost around 1,000 kroner.

Marhaug, 42, said his elderly father had spent a small fortune replacing the seven radio sets he has around his home. “He is a typical Norwegian – being so spread out, we’re very much a nation of radio listeners, and he depends on it as his main source of information and communication,” he said.

Dubbed ‘FMExit’, the transition is being closely watched by other nations in Europe considering the move, in particular Britain, Denmark and Switzerland, all of which are considered to be well prepared. The region of South Tyrol in northern Italy will also begin its FM switch off this year. Other countries such as France and Germany, where broadcasters have failed to be convinced of the advantages of DAB, are considerably behind.

Germany was due to switch off FM signals by 2015, but in 2011 MPs voted against the schedule.

In the UK more than 45% of radio listening is digital. The government has said the switch from FM to DAB will happen when the figure stands at 50% and the DAB signal can be received by 90% of the population.

“The main reason behind this big technological change is that we want to offer a better radio service to the entire population,” said Ole Jorgen Tormark, the head of Digitalradio Norge, which is owned by the public broadcaster NRK and the commercial station P4.

He argued that DAB would offer better coverage, would allow listeners to catch up on programmes they missed, and offered a more reliable method of broadcasting vital crisis bulletins in times of emergency.

The advocates of the move say that as DAB and FM have operated side by side for almost 22 years, the move should be a smooth one.

The FM switch-off is due to be finished in Troms and Finnmark on 13 December.

FM or Frequency Modulation was invented in the United States 1933 and made widely available in the 1950s. DAB was developed by researchers in the 1980s.

Amid the wave of nostalgia being felt towards FM, one Norwegian artist has said he is planning a requiem for the old radio waves, which gradually diminish as the year progresses.

Marhaug said: “There’s a great deal of nostalgia. I miss the white noise already. It’s like someone has died – and there’s no way back.”