Ideas
Streaming radio to 3G phones
Nokia smartphones now ship with a Real Audio player and 3G is easily fast enough to support audio streaming but currently no bbc .ram files play on these phones. So currently I can't catch up on my favourite shows on my way home from work which would be fantastic.
However, it would seem to be only a small step to change the encoding on these files and so allow them to be played. Links could then be provided from the bbc mobile site or the excellent bbc pda site.
Given the time/money I would be interesting in exploring this, especially as I work for one of the UK mobile operators. I am sure the operator would be interested in sharing a proportion of the network revenue with the BBC if steaming a 1/2hr file generates several Mb of traffic over the network (at a cost to the user of around £1-2 depending on tariff).
- 19 May 2005 12:05 PM
We have tried this for use with in-car computing.
From our tests, the 3g service is not consistent enough to play back the current bit-rate real media files, while it works in some places it's not suitable for using on, for example the train, or in a car.
Also, with the license fee surely it would be unreasonable to charge again for content that's already been paid for.
I think the most cost-effective method would be if mobile manufacturers migrated from the current FM-tuners and looked towards DAB chipsets integrated in mobile phones. The obvious benefit to consumers (not the networks) is that consumers could take advantage of TPEG traffic information for free.