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Virgin Radio Launches 3G Radio Service
An anonymous reader writes "Virgin Radio, one of UK's top radio stations, has launched the first 3G radio service for free (as in beer). This is great news for those with a Symbian equipped phone and an unlimited data plan. Various articles suggest that mobile radio could be a major threat to satellite radio. Russell Beattie and friends have had an initial look and commented on the program."
As stated in the Wall Street Journal, Virgin actually attempted to acquire Sirus radio early in 2004, however they could not settle on an amount and the deal fell through. This must be Virgins plan to twart satellite radio, and maintain their hold on the communications market. XM and Sirus should merge to stay competitive in the market and drop their prices. Only time will tell where they go with this one.
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This is a pretty nifty new angle, and something satellite radio most likely didn't consider - still, all things considered, mobile phones aren't really Hi-Fi devices (though if this catches on, the next generation *might* be -- but can you still receive phone calls while listening to the 'radio'?
Still, generally Richard Branson does come up with some neat ways to keep his name on the map, so it'd be interesting how this does, and how many others will follow suit.
Most new mid to high range phones sold in the UK also come with the ability to recieve FM radio stations. Radio is still going strong here - Clearchannel hasn't taken over.
In the UK you can get Symbian based phones for free on contract relatively cheaply. For example my Noia 6670 was free on my contract (~£25 per month, 250 Min cross network talk time free). I imagine 7650s (my last Symbian phone, £50 on a similar plan 2 years ago) are basically freebies on the cheapest plans now.
As for unlimited data plans, O2 dont seem to charge for the use of the GPRS connection either. At least I've never been charged for it during 2 years woth of use.
I agree it's the first software targeting a widely available sartphone platform (Symbian) but it's not the first 3G Radio Service available ( read more ).
For example, Windows Media on Windows Mobile devices (Pocket PC Phone Edition and Smartphone) have been available for years now and will play any radio stream in the WMA format. And what's more, no need to download and install additional software.
No, don't come with "open" platform stuff, because the Virgin Radio is tied to their network, and the company did not disclose what streaming technology is being used.
It's not the first 3G service also because the Harrier Pocket PC Phone Edition (a.k.a. Verizon XV6600 in the USA) is a CDMA EV-DO device, connecting at speeds of 500Kbps average - higher than the WCDMA/UMTS average speeds, and available for some time now.
Well, for one, doing 128 kbps on a GPRS network isn't exactly possible. So your radio stations have to support custom mobile streams. Then there's the problem of such streams. On a desktop, you can just browse around until you find something you like. On a cell phone, browsing is quite a pain. So you'd better have a known link. Of course, you also need a player for the stream. In this case, they've pretty much managed to put it all together in an easy-to-use (albeit restricted to VR) form. A lot of people (e.g. Nokia) go to great lengths to make things usable. When you're dealing with people who select "yes" when asked 3 times to install a virus, you'd better make it really really simple.
-Snrrrub
The phrase started as "free (as in free beer)", but naturally the computer industry added its usual confusing baggage to it.
PCMCIA.
This sounds like a lot of hype for something that's out there for symbian phone owners already. With an unlimited data plan in hand, download RealOne for Symbian, find your favorite station that streams using RealAudio (BBC has more than a dozen plus world service in 43 languages) and go.
My favorite is listening to This American Life...I'll be honest, my Nokia 3650 only supports 16khz/8bit/mono, but it's certainly listenable...if only I had an adapter between the the headset port and a 1/8" jack, then I could use it with my car stereo.
Don't let their names fool you. Virgin radio is no longer part of the "Virgin Empire", it's a company of SMG Radio.
It used to be a part of Bransons' group, but he sold it. SMG just licenses the use of the name.
see the Virgin Radio website for details on this
Virgin Mobile does not operate their own network either, it's a virtual mobile network operator, which basically means they provide their own branded version of the T-Mobile network. Strange thing is that T-Mobile does offer 3G services, but apparently Virgin Mobile doesn't.