This week Jennifer Waits joins us live in studio as we remember Don Joyce, a pioneering sound artist and member of the culture jamming musical group Negativland, who passed away on July 22. We also discuss AT&T’s plan to activate the FM radio’s on the carrier’s Android phones, and KEXP’s recent 12-hour marathon broadcast exploring […]
Tag Archives | AT&T
Digital Watch: AT&T Android Phones Get FM in 2016
On Tuesday AT&T, the nation’s second largest wireless carrier, announced that it is activating the FM radio chips on Android smartphones subscribed to its service. Beginning in 2016, subscribers buying new compatible phones will be able to use the free NextRadio app to listen to both terrestrial broadcasts and those stations’ internet streams. Sprint, the […]
Radio Survivor Podcast #3: FCC Paper Tiger Teams vs Pirate Radio
The FCC Enforcement Bureau and pirate radio are the topics of the day, as Prof. John Anderson of Brooklyn College joins us to discuss the broadcast industry’s furor over the Commission’s plans to ratchet down its resident field agent presence around the country. We also tackle the FCC’s $100 million fine levied against AT&T, House […]
At CES cars use direct 4G LTE connection for internet radio, but data is a speedbump
Like the last few years, the connected dashboard is the most important news from the Consumer Electronics Show for radio. This initiative reached a new level of maturity this year. But at the same time, the always looming specter of wireless data costs and threats to internet freedom pose road hazards for the development of […]
What if broadcast radio had taken off around 1906 instead of the 1920s?
I’m looking forward to this Sunday morning, when I will be on the Gramophoney Baloney show again over at Radio Valencia in San Francisco. This week the show’s host DJ McShmormac is planning a four hour Armistice Day special. I asked him for specifics on Facebook: “4 hours of recordings dating from the WWI-era 1914-1918 […]
Is your PC laptop the best deal for Internet radio?
I’ve been writing a lot about Internet radio and mobile devices these days. But sometimes I think there are advantages to tuning in on my PC laptop instead. Advantage number one: avoiding monthly charges. Most radio social networking applications on your PC are free with advertisements, including Last.fm. But want to get Last on your […]
Pandora CFO says mobile data caps not a problem
When AT&T first announced new monthly data caps for iPhone users in 2010 I suggested that it could stunt the growth of mobile internet radio. Some eighteen months later I do have to admit that doesn’t seem to have happened. I made some rough calculations based upon the typical bandwidth consumed by streaming internet stations […]
Wireless broadband coalition: lift satellite radio price caps if Sirius gets off our back
The great war between Sirius satellite radio (SIRI) and the Wireless Communications System Coalition has taken another interesting turn as the Federal Communications Commission ponders whether to lift the price caps the FCC imposed on Sirius as a condition for its merger with XM in 2008. The WCS Coalition—backed by Comcast (CMCSA), Nextwave (WAVE), and […]
Could smartphone data cap plans hurt Internet radio?
The National Association of Broadcasters is sending around an interesting think piece about Internet/mobile radio. The report was published by the Station Resource Group, a consortium of public media services. It’s titled “The Mobile Internet: A Replacement for Radio?” and is pretty circumspect about the question—pondering the various differences between broadcast and Internet audio streams. This paragraph […]
Slacker Radio's caching aims to bypass AT&T data caps
Hot on the heels of AT&T’s new data pricing plans, Slacker Radio released the new version 2.0 of their app which will permit listeners to cache their stations while on a wifi network. Then the stations can be listened to without using up precious data from the 3G network. On the surface this may sound […]