The Eagle RDS

DavidEduardo said:

The problem I see is that only about a third of radio listening takes place in the car. So 9% car penetration translates into only 3% of all listening opportunities market-wide. Subtract the people like myself who have learned how to turn off HD to avoid the irritating fallbacks and the people who don't understand HD so can't look for it, and the audience potential is very low still.

People are not buying stand-alone radio receivers any more. And there is a definite shortage of in-home HD radios that work well. And, due to battery life, there is little in the way of HD capable portables.

In any case, consumers believe that their smartphone is their radio, and use it accordingly. There are no HD equipped smartphones.

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I assure you David, they don't see their smartphone as their radio in Houston during drive time if their provider is AT&T or Sprint. It's tough enough to make a phone call here during peak times, much less stream anything. They also likely don't see their smartphone as their radio if they work in a high rise above the 10th floor. Each technology has its own challenges.

Naysayers can say nay all they want, but the rollout continues, and people are discovering HD Radio. An electrician I had doing some work for me recently at Senior Road talked at length about the HD Radio in his wife's new car. He even mentioned a subchannel that she particularly enjoys.

radiogooroo said:

I assure you David, they don't see their smartphone as their radio in Houston during drive time if their provider is AT&T or Sprint. It's tough enough to make a phone call here during peak times, much less stream anything. They also likely don't see their smartphone as their radio if they work in a high rise above the 10th floor. Each technology has its own challenges.

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Streaming with ATT is pretty easy; their network is as robust as their ads claim it is. They're not as good as Verizon, but light years ahead of T-Mobile. Sprint appears to be two tin cans with a string that's been duct-taped together.

There is a fair amount of online listening to the terrestrial signals here in town; some can pull a share or so in the book if they're not rolled into the main station. While you can't break down how much of that is desktop computers in an office or mobile devices, if you yank the cable from your streaming appliance it's going to get noticed.

My experience with AT&T has been very different from yours. I had AT&T until just a few months ago, and I couldn't have a reliable voice call driving down Westheimer in the afternoon, much less stream anything.

Only two stations have broken the Nielsen reporting threshold with their stream in Houston. KRBE did it a few times a few years ago. Currently, no station is.

johndavis said:

Streaming with ATT is pretty easy; their network is as robust as their ads claim it is. They're not as good as Verizon, but light years ahead of T-Mobile. Sprint appears to be two tin cans with a string that's been duct-taped together. There is a fair amount of online listening to the terrestrial signals here in town; some can pull a share or so in the book if they're not rolled into the main station. While you can't break down how much of that is desktop computers in an office or mobile devices, if you yank the cable from your streaming appliance it's going to get noticed.

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Have to agree with you, John.

My job puts me on the road a lot, and until a year ago I was traveling with T-Mobile. For streaming, in the cities their network was adequate (not great). However, as soon as you left town in many places you were treated to 3G Edge, or even 2G with no data at all. I tried Sprint for one month; worthless! I then switched to AT&T, but not directly. WalMart's Straighttalk has a bring your own device (BYOD) kit with several SIM cards depending on what carrier and type of phone you want to use. For $45 a month you get unlimited talk, text, and data on AT&T's network. The first 3.5 Gb is at 4G LTE speeds, then they roll it back to regular 4G HSPA (which is still more than adequate for audio streaming).

Using AT&T, I've streamed all the way from Houston to San Antonio and Lake Charles without a single hiccup. On 45 to Dallas, I encountered one dead area near Fairfield. In east Texas, I encountered a few near Kirbyville, Jasper, and Mt Enterprise -- backroads so remote and unpopulated that you really cant expect service. Overall, my experience using streaming is good. No terrestrial FM radio station could ever offer that kinda service!

One thing important to note is that your experience is not going to be as good if you are using mobile apps like Tunein, or even apps put out there by the radio stations themselves. When you download and install these apps, read what you are agreeing to (e.g., sharing contacts, numbers calls, photos, camera, etc). Then you've got the pop up ads and song metadata being sent to the phone. All this extra data use causes the cheaper androids to freeze up, and on good phones you get more hiccups. If you download VLCs mobile player (or one of many others) and plug in the actual stream URL, your stream will be much more reliable and smooth.

93QClassic.com said:

Have to agree with you, John.

My job puts me on the road a lot, and until a year ago I was traveling with T-Mobile. For streaming, in the cities their network was adequate (not great). However, as soon as you left town in many places you were treated to 3G Edge, or even 2G with no data at all. I tried Sprint for one month; worthless! I then switched to AT&T, but not directly. WalMart's Straighttalk has a bring your own device (BYOD) kit with several SIM cards depending on what carrier and type of phone you want to use. For $45 a month you get unlimited talk, text, and data on AT&T's network. The first 3.5 Gb is at 4G LTE speeds, then they roll it back to regular 4G HSPA (which is still more than adequate for audio streaming).

Using AT&T, I've streamed all the way from Houston to San Antonio and Lake Charles without a single hiccup. On 45 to Dallas, I encountered one dead area near Fairfield. In east Texas, I encountered a few near Kirbyville, Jasper, and Mt Enterprise -- backroads so remote and unpopulated that you really cant expect service. Overall, my experience using streaming is good. No terrestrial FM radio station could ever offer that kinda service!

One thing important to note is that your experience is not going to be as good if you are using mobile apps like Tunein, or even apps put out there by the radio stations themselves. When you download and install these apps, read what you are agreeing to (e.g., sharing contacts, numbers calls, photos, camera, etc). Then you've got the pop up ads and song metadata being sent to the phone. All this extra data use causes the cheaper androids to freeze up, and on good phones you get more hiccups. If you download VLCs mobile player (or one of many others) and plug in the actual stream URL, your stream will be much more reliable and smooth.

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I didn't say they have a coverage problem, they have a capacity problem during drive time in Houston.

They have a well documented capacity problem in other large metros. AT&T is even worse in NYC.

radiogooroo said:

I didn't say they have a coverage problem, they have a capacity problem during drive time in Houston. They have a well documented capacity problem in other large metros. AT&T is even worse in NYC.

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Okay, gotcha. I've encountered this myself at the rodeo and stuck in traffic. Not much anyone can do until more spectrum (such as TV whitespace) is auctioned off to the phone companies.

radiogooroo said:

My experience with AT&T has been very different from yours. I had AT&T until just a few months ago, and I couldn't have a reliable voice call driving down Westheimer in the afternoon, much less stream anything.

Only two stations have broken the Nielsen reporting threshold with their stream in Houston. KRBE did it a few times a few years ago. Currently, no station is.

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I never had capacity issues in Houston with ATT save for Rodeo (everyone struggles at NRG). Customer service from ATT sent me to Verizon.

johndavis said:

I never had capacity issues in Houston with ATT save for Rodeo (everyone struggles at NRG). Customer service from ATT sent me to Verizon.

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Bad move. CDMA (code division multiple access - Verizon and Sprint) relies on the clock generator in the base station and portable phone to be synchronized. That simply isn't possible. Your connection is doomed to drop at some point - it is inevitable as time slivers keep adding up. TDMA (time division multiple access - ATT and T-Mobile) relies on an external time reference (GPS satellites). Because both base station and telephone are sychronized to the same reference, there is no theoretical limit on the duration of the connection. While CDMA can offer good phone call quality, if you plan on streaming for an extended period of time, it will drop. Most calls are short enough people don't notice that CDMA eventually drops calls. But try to stream for an hour - it won't work.

My daughter is an actress. Her calls absolutely positively cannot drop - and there is no "late" to an audition or call time. CDMA (Verizon) cost her a part on TV. ATT hangs in as you go through valleys and elevation changes in LA - Verizon does not. TDMA (sometimes called GSM) is much more robust.

in 2012, I drove from Beaumont to San Antonio on Boost (which uses Sprint's CDMA network)...streamed WLS FM (when the jocks were talking, etc) all the way (4+ hours of driving)...except to call in and talk to John Landecker (who put my call on the air!..second time in two months!)....Never a blip...The phone syncs to the base station signal just like CPE equipment on a T1 syncs from the Telco.........there can be only ONE clock!

my current Verizon phone can go for HOURS with no issue...cell phones cannot see GPS sats inside buildings or vehicles unless they are next to a window....so that doesnt hold water.

GSM is enhanced version of TDMA and the world wide accepted cell version...a GSM phone in the US can be used worldwide with the correct SIM card....