Web Radio Overtakes AM/FM radio – Good News for Open Spectrum Activists


Radio listeners are turning to the web, Web gets more listeners than AM/FM. The news is

People using the web to listen to radio during the evening now outnumber those using traditional AM or FM receivers, according to Virgin.
Nearly one in four (24 per cent) listens online compared with 21 per cent who tune in to analogue broadcasts. Seventeen per cent use digital (Dab) radio and nine per cent get the programmes via their TV. The remaining 29 per cent represent the proportion of Virgin regulars who do not tune in at all on a given day.
The figures cover listeners outside London where the reception may be weaker.

A trend that should lead to the opening of parts of the AM and FM spectrum. The narrow ranges of spectrum used by the 802.11 standard have shown how much value can be generated when a communications medium is made available to all.

Good news for open spectrum activitists , who advocate that availability of spectrum for license-exempt use has enabled us to develop cost-effective, user-owned networks to provide Internet access and localised information services for the benefit of many thousands

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