Wi-Fi Radio

[Brutish Sailor]

I was watching a couple of ads talking about WiFi for cars built in....

 

Then I heard this story about Philadelphia.

 

 

 

I'm impressed your city is that wired.

 

in philly it became a disaster.

 

First it was "free wifi for all!"

 

Then after wasting thousands in tax dollars defending against a lawsuit from Comcast (ironically a philly based company)

 

It become "over priced Wifi for some, reasonably priced wifi for others"

 

More recently its become "no wifi for anyone, tiny american flags for others" (simpsons joke)

 

But now we have a lot of poorly placed wireless routers owned by a company that does not exist.

 

Oh how i love philly

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone from Philly that could verify this?

[Bizzacore]

It's not until companies jump on board with this, that a car wi-fi radio will work. Jumping from puny home signal to puny home signal will be worse than satellite's receiver that cuts when you drive under a low hanging tree (at least this has been my experience).

 

We have Optimum Wi-Fi out here on Long Island NY, and it's free for Optimum customers, but I would imagine a pay service for non Optimum customers. The problem with this, is that car owners that have a wireless internet radio device, and have internet service other than Optimum is not going to be able to take advantage of the wi-fi for free.

 

The problem exists that not everyone is going to use the same ISP. There needs to be a "free for all" (to the truest sense of the phrase) wi-fi for wireless internet radio to exist in automobiles. Until this exists, it's unfortnate, but internet radio on the go just won't be taken seriously, which is a shame because there is some great content that should be recognized, and utilized on the go wherever someone is.

 

Unrelated to the subject here, however very important to wi-fi internet radios:

The other problem exists of standards. You can't go "surfing" through the dial like you could on an AM/FM radio or even a satellite radio. I hear some home internet radios pull their content from a certain website, whos name escapes me right now, but is this the only "standard" website that these radios will pull from? It's always been a question to me of how exactly you could get the content that you want to your radio, and/or how you could find new content when the urge arises.

[Brutish Sailor]

Im going to guess that WiFi radio will work similar to the shoutcast directories.

 

A couple of possible alternatives.

 

Middle turn out:

 

1) WiFi directory gets hands deep with a already established group like Itunes. It becomes some Icar directory.

 

Bad turn out:

 

2) Internet radio goes the way of terrestrial radio like Sirus. Premium stations only. This is the WORST CASE SITUATION. As an added bonus, the FCC claims that we all have to abide by their standards in the US because WiFi is RF technology.

 

Best case turn out:

 

3) WiFi radio never gets its act together. Its present, but every wifi radio company has its own radio directory to list in. All the WiFi antennas get paid for by having some means to stream an ad before it connects you to the stream.

[wildun]

Wi-Fi radio is in use using cell phone bandwidth and is being offered in certain new cars. This appears to be the preferred way for auto makers and is the best option for portabilty. Although the FCC in the US decided to open new frequencies for wireless use, and their are some plans for nationwide wi-fi, I think the existing cell phone towers are going to be the best and most viable option all around. If I remember correctly these car wifi radios have the ability for the user to input a station url to listen to. I recall one even has a browser built in.

[DaveyC]

I have a CarPC installed, and I bought one of them mobile broadband dongles so I can get access to internet radio while im driving around and answer important emails in a lay-by lol

 

The one thing I have noticed is that the connection is nowhere near stable enough at the moment. I had a shoutcast server running at 96kbps and would get drops in the stream which would cause me to reconnect which is not enjoyable. (i was in a HSDPA area at the time too)

 

I think the technology is there, it just needs to be built upon now. More bandwidth needs to be allocated, and the price needs to be lowered too (£10 for 1gb which needs to be used in 30 days)

 

Let's hope they decide to roll out high speed Wi-Fi with roaming capabilities in the UK, or at least, increase the capacity of the HSDPA network.

 

Dave

[wildun]

I'd suggest connecting to a lower bandwidth stream. I utilize a 24kbs stream for dial up users and cell phones. The quality isn't as good but it's stable on those platforms. I'd be interested in knowing if it relieves your drop offs.

[Brutish Sailor]

Id suggest the same. One thing the industry of Wi-Fi isnt ready for are tons of streaming connections over 32kbps.

[JBVoice]

I just bought a retired police cruiser and it came with the original switches (without lights though) and the laptop mount. I have WiMax wireless internet and have the sound plugged into the line in input of the stereo system. I have only heard it skip a few times. Great for listening to internet radio!

 

Now, as far as WiFi radio....I think the way it will work, is people will pay for mobile internet...weather it be satalite or whatever...I do know in Philly, they tried getting WiMax a few years ago but it didnt work out too well.....Now its only in certain cities, Baltimore/Washington being one of them

[voodoohippie]

Many cell phones have stereo output and will have Shoutcast built right in. So I can imagine that soon cell phone users will be able to listen to The Legacy and enjoy Progressive Rock on the go.

[GKIye]

Paying for mobile internet is the most normal thing at my country (Belgium) ...

To reach and to get new customers to their mobile internet one of the providers (Telenet) is currently making a promotion ...

(read as = what they call a promotion at Belgium)

New customers only have to pay 20 Euro a Month.

and what do they get for this money ?

Yes sir ... wireless internetconnection of 1Mbps and 1GB traffic a Month !!!

Do you think that sounds stupid ? Well thats the way it goes at my country :doh:

1GB a Month stands to an average of 13 hours (a MONTH !) of listening to a 128kbps internetradio .. and their customers did not yet have used or have send any email

Thats what they call a promotional effort (??!)

I think the way it will work, is people will pay for mobile internet...

 

To my knowledge stations who are at the Nokia Internetradio Network can stream any regular bitrate (ex: 128kbps)

Some of them are converted by the Nokia services to a lower bitrate (ex: 48 untill 64kbps)

My project streams at 128

The past week I received a confirmation from Nokia that my project is having their approvement to publish their official banner at my website.

After their confirmation I have now a new visible section at my Nokia broadcaster profile where I can download the banner files

Nice details = since about one Month Nokia started also with "listener stats"

I'm a member to their 3G services since July 2008.

I utilize a 24kbs stream for dial up users and cell phones

[saint]

Comcast rolls out wireless Web

 

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Comcast Corp, the largest U.S. cable operator, said on Monday it is introducing a wireless service for subscribers to access the Web beyond their homes anywhere within the United States.

 

The so-called fourth-generation (4G) wireless service, is the first execution of a partnership between Comcast, Clearwire Corp and other companies that use the emerging WiMax high-speed mobile technology.

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSTRE55S50220090629

 

 

4G is based on WiMax or Super WiFi, which has a much larger "foot print" than normal WiFi signals. Just a few 4G cells could cover a entire mid sized city. The only factor that could inhibit the use of 4G for true mainstream "WiFi Radio and Television" is the application of bandwidth caps.

 

I would personally pay 69.00 a month to have 4G capability that I could use at home or at work or anywhere I wanted.

 

From a broadcasters point of view, 4G wireless content delivery offers fantastic savings. They no longer have the need for large broadcast facilities, expensive licensing and licensed radio engineers. Except for live content, everything else can be delivered using a standard desktop computer.

 

As far as content royalty fee's go, more and more musicians see the err of signing up with big music labels. This will force the music industry to re-evaluate their tyrannical attitude toward the last great money grab.

[saint]

4G update

 

I saw a Sprint 4G commercial this morning and looked up the service.

 

Mobile Broadband Connection Plan

$79.99/mo. with a two-year agreement*

Unlimited 4G usage

5GB of 3G usage/300 Mb while off-network roaming

 

 

http://www.nextel.com/en/solutions/mobile_broadband/mobile_broadband_4G.shtml?id9=vanity:4g

[voodoohippie]

OMG with caps like 3G it will take some time b4 it will take off. Of course with hackers just like the phone phreakers forced phone companies to go flat rate long distance because they just could not keep the phreakers out. many passed codes right in front of the phone companies noses via hacking into the admin of a business VMB and creating a mailbox to be used as a Code Line.

 

And Yess the RIAA is sheer selfish and greedy. Its not the p2p that is forcing many people not to buy music, its the fact that on air Radio is forced to play the same 40-100 songs in rotation over and over again until the next hew set of hits come. Hence my stance against Top 40 Rock and Pro Progressive Rock, Classic Album Rock that you'll hear on The Legacy Radio. I am sure that On Air Radio is scared of stations like mine that are 100% against repeating the same song twice in a 24 hr period. So much though that I done something about it. There are so many good artists that will never get credit for great works because the RIAA only wants Radio to play certain artists and songs till one is sick all together of the whole corporate Radio mess.

 

Long live Independent Radio stations

stations.swcast.net/thelegacy