WEB RADIO--- future!

[Clayton Douglas]

Being real now---- how soon is it likely web radio will be portable and in cars/vehicles --- for the general public at a reasonable cost. ? and with signals that are stable/ reliable! will this really doom am-fm-hd and possibly satellite radio ?

 

[vsa]

Being real now---- how soon is it likely web radio will be portable and in cars/vehicles --- for the general public at a reasonable cost. ? and with signals that are stable/ reliable! will this really doom am-fm-hd and possibly satellite radio ?

It'll happen 34 days from now. Seriously, the process is already underway and will continue to be gradual, but relentless. Web radio is alreday portable and available in cars. Reasonable cost? That's a different number to different people. Stable signals? Read here:

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/...d=news_view&newsId=20071115006179&newsLang=en

As for dooming AM/FM/XM/Surius? Think about it. All four are already hurting. The days of limited distribution are drawing to an end.

 

[Radioman100]

Being real now---- how soon is it likely web radio will be portable and in cars/vehicles --- for the general public at a reasonable cost. ? and with signals that are stable/ reliable! will this really doom am-fm-hd and possibly satellite radio ?

The answer is never. It might be somewhat passable in 20-30 years.

They're relying on the same people that bring you cell phones that routinely can't make or drop calls to provide flawless mobile internet services. As for cost, my last Verizon broadband access bill was $81.99.

Think people are going to pay $80 per month to listen to automation systems play music on the internet? Think again! That's if there are even streams around to hear. The RIAA has gone on record saying webcasters have no promotional value to them, and they're trying to snuff them out through royalty collection. All of the major webcasters have cried that the new royalties that have been proposed, when collected, WILL put them out of business.

No doubt, people will retort that there's all this future technology or vaporware that will make mobile web radio viable just around the corner. When they do, think about all the now technology the cell phone companies have had 20+ years to perfect when your cell calls get dropped today.

 

[vsa]

Being real now---- how soon is it likely web radio will be portable and in cars/vehicles --- for the general public at a reasonable cost. ? and with signals that are stable/ reliable! will this really doom am-fm-hd and possibly satellite radio ?

The answer is never. It might be somewhat passable in 20-30 years.....my last Verizon broadband access bill was $81.99...

Let's see. You say "never." Then you say "in 20-30 years." Then you admit to already having and using wireless broadband. By the way, my VZW unlimited data plan costs me half of what you're paying. Who's the smart one?

 

[Radioman100]

Let's see. You say "never." Then you say "in 20-30 years." Then you admit to already having and using wireless broadband. By the way, my VZW unlimited data plan costs me half of what you're paying. Who's the smart one?

Well, you live in California, I don't. They tack on about $30 in taxes and other state fees here.

But that's OK. I don't pay a state income tax either.

I have and use my broadband access card, yes. I use it at airports (sometimes.) I use it in hotels when I'm on the road (sometimes.) I say sometimes, because it sometimes doesn't work. Fortunately, this one works a lot better than my last wireless broadband provider. It absolutely blew.

When it's reliable enough for me to use it at airports (always) and in hotel rooms (always) and in conference rooms (always) you might have a point.

 

[vsa]

Let's see. You say "never." Then you say "in 20-30 years." Then you admit to already having and using wireless broadband. By the way, my VZW unlimited data plan costs me half of what you're paying. Who's the smart one?

Well, you live in California, I don't.  They tack on about $30 in taxes and other state fees here.

But that's OK.  I don't pay a state income tax either.

I have and use my broadband access card, yes.  I use it at airports (sometimes.)  I use it in hotels when I'm on the road (sometimes.)  I say sometimes, because it sometimes doesn't work.  Fortunately, this one works a lot better than my last wireless broadband provider.  It absolutely blew.

When it's reliable enough for me to use it at airports (always) and in hotel rooms (always) and in conference rooms (always) you might have a point.

Has it occurred to you that you might have a defective card?

My wireless access always works at airports, hotels and conference rooms. It's not just a California thing. Even worked for me everywhere I've tried it in Hawaii (Oahu).

 

[Radioman100]

Has it occurred to you that you might have a defective card?

My wireless access always works at airports, hotels and conference rooms. It's not just a California thing. Even worked for me everywhere I've tried it in Hawaii (Oahu).

The last one (Sprint) worked so poorly that it may have been a bad card, however I've talked to a lot of other people that have had a similar experience with Sprint.

To be fair, the Verizon card rarely lets me down completely, though it does often drop to "National Access" speed in suburban areas and smaller cities, and it's painfully slow then. When I'm at home, it always scoots along at "Broadband Access" speed. I can easily tell when their peak demand times are though with "Broadband Access." It slows down significantly during peak demand.

 

[RoscoeBrowning]

I use Sprint via my Blackberry and it works beautifully. In fact, I'm using it right now with my laptop.

How can you with a straight face say that web radio will never be available in cars? Your cost and reliability arguments may or may not be valid, but let's remember how new products not only get better, but also much less expensive over time.

Web radio in cars is already being done in mass in Europe. I guess when you said "never" you meant to say in a year or two.

Do you work for the NAB?

 

[Radioman100]

I'm not saying it won't ever be possible, I'm saying it won't ever enjoy the reliability of terrestrial analog radio.

I'm writing this from my AT&T smartphone this morning because my Verizon card that worked great in my hotel room last night at 1AM isn't working at all this morning. Go figure.

 

[gunterm]

First off, many if not all new cars since around 2006-2008 and onward now have "mp3 player" jacks on the front which are just 3.5mm line-in plugs for anything with a headphone jack. Now many car factory radios have bluetooth with A2DP (stereo hifi audio) profiles supported which makes it even better

As far as data plan costs, yes its true that it is expensive to buy the data plan just for listening to the radio, however people almost always buy them just so they could send e-mail and surf the internet, so in that respect its not an extra cost really. Plus we don't include companies who have them on all their phones as well, they are potential radio listeners.

I just today discovered something for the iPhones called iRadio that gets its station listings from www.iradio.com (stations ranked in genres by listener counts). Although it does only play SHOUTcast/mp3 streams, which would probably buffer over EDGE/GPRS at high bitrates like 96 or 128kbps its definately a step in the right direction. I was actually hoping Apple would add their own radio tuner into the internal iTunes program on the iPhones.

As for the windows devices, we've made it super easy to access our streams so that more people might be encouraged to do so. In addition to running a promo for it on all the streams, we also have a special mobile site that you are sent to when visiting www.977music.com or www.radiostorm.com and once you pick a station it's automatically loaded into Windows media player mobile and plays. It seems like at the moment there aren't all that many mobile listeners, but more than we expected.

Once annoyance though is that all these phones have a 2.5mm headset size connector, not the 3.5mm that headphones use, so many have to seek out the adaptor. Bluetooth would definately jump this little hurdle.

Another add-on here:
As far as device proliferation goes, it would be nice if there were hacks to unlock the Sandisk Sansa for something besides the POS launchcast from yahoo, and an application for the Zune so that its wifi will be more useful than it is.

 

[talkback13]

I listen to Internet Radio in my car every day. I have a smartphone with a $40 per month data plan and Bluetooth Audio (in my Pioneer Car radio).

I get station links from www.TalkStreamLive.mobi

I use the free player TCPMP to listen to the broadband links (96 to 128kbs) that the Windows Mobile player is not capable to play.

Live Internet radio in your car is a better choice than ipod, CD, satellite and corporate terra radio.

 

[DHMRadio]

I have a Motorola Q preloaded with DHM stations.

Its linked into my cassette player so i hear it throughout my whole car at 67kbps

I cant complain