Comments on: Radio broadcasting over 3G – impossibly costly?

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 20:05:39 +0000

I appreciate your point of view and I think that it points to an uncommon answer to this question of whether 3G radio will take off. In my opinion there’s more to business than just “will it work better” or “will it improve the experience”. One question that I think we should really be asking is “is the effect big enough to warrant the change”. I personally feel that a change in the structure of radio as a service and experience on the whole will be what decides the fate of this issue. There must be more than just a cheaper or more convenient solution, this just isn’t enough to warrant this large of a change in the norm.

By: guigeek

guigeek — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 01:31:13 +0000

Mr Santa Maria,

As always I’m loving your work. You’re at the bleeding edge, fine sir.

Many thanks for the inspiration that you give to us all.

By: Goodbye, radio via 3G – we can’t afford you - James Cridland

Goodbye, radio via 3G – we can’t afford you - James Cridland — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 17:52:33 +0000

[...] while back, I linked to a French report that said that listening over mobile phones could be an impossibly costly broadcast medium for [...]

By: Brent Noorda

Brent Noorda — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:21:51 +0000

The cost and performance problems of “broadcasting” over internet protocols may be mitigated somewhat by the fact that it is not exactly analogous to broadcasting from an antenna. Internet broadcasts are not streamed so much as buffered (although that buffering window may get very small), and need not be exactly real-time. If a broadcast can be considered as a delivery of a bunch of small files, but delivered only to those who need them and only when little delivery windows are available, and they don’t have to be delivered in exactly real time but only need to play without audible gaps, then buffering efficiencies emerge. If it turns out those same small files are used by many many listeners at approximately (but not exactly) the same time, then network caching further localizes the delivery problems–the internet has gotten really really good at the problem of efficiently delivering a whole lot of small packets.

Costs may indeed be too high (with our service I’ve calculated they won’t be) but the comparison against traditional real-time broadcasting must take into account the different efficiencies of each delivery mechanism.

By: James Cridland

James Cridland — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 20:50:35 +0000

Andrew, listening to the radio via 3G is certainly not ‘adopted heavily’; and this research would tend to add considerable doubts about whether it would ever be so.

Are there any technologies which have not made it to heavy adoption because of their bandwidth requirements? Absolutely…

By: Andrew Leyden

Andrew Leyden — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 14:11:55 +0000

Bandwidth requirements will kill __________________

How many times have we heard this sentence, and how many times has it actually become true? Is there ANY technology that has been put out there, adopted heavily, and then retracted because of bandwidth requirements? Ever?

By: Adolf

Adolf — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:09:31 +0000

It is very strange that IPTV does not have this problem, maybe theres something wrong with the IP Radio?

By: RadioAssistant.com - Because We Love Radio

RadioAssistant.com - Because We Love Radio — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 15:29:06 +0000

[...] innlegget “Radio broadcasting over 3G – impossibly costly?” av James Cridland for [...]

By: Tim Page

Tim Page — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:47:24 +0000

I think the “whether the network would cope with all this” is a – if not the – key point.

I took a walk to work this morning. It’s five miles, from a village to a county town with a population of about 100k. Sure, it ain’t London.. but it’s a not untypical way of life for tens of millions of UK residents.

I was listening on my iPhone as the battery in my FM radio had died. I got rock solid 2G signal the whole way (“full bars”), with strong 3G for the last bit. Even on a modest 48k wma stream, the 2G just can’t cope for anything more than dxing anoraks (or middle managers who want to hear their output!). Even 3G fell short of perfect. And this was at 6.30 this morning with presumably not much mobile traffic competing for the cells in the middle of my field.

Sure.. you can argue that 2G isn’t really meant for streaming. But the 3G just isn’t there outside the cities, and the roll-out of sufficently strong 3G to provide universal, or even half-decent, coverage would make these costs hugely higher.

DAB has already seen a big concentration of service in urban areas. This is another format which won’t fly very easily away from the cities.

By: Paul Webster

Paul Webster — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:25:26 +0000

Is it likely that the operators performing the final delivery would be able to charge the broadcaster?
That has not happened yet for regular internet traffic has it?

I remember UK ISPs complaining about the huge increase in broadband traffic due to BBC iPlayer usage – but requests for payment from BBC (except for its own direct network connctions) have been batted back.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/7336940.stm

As the listener pays – via their phone contracts then it will be self-limiting … with mobile operators competing on tarrifs.