Less is better in terms of your data usage. You’re probably listening to a 128kbps stream, but you might be getting a 96kbps or even a 48kbps stream.This means that you get the same quality sound without the data hit. New encoding formats, like those using AAC, mean that you can get high-quality audio at lower bit-rates.It’s in the interests of the developers / radio station that you don’t consume loads of data, else you’ll probably uninstall their app.You can check how much data you’re getting through with apps like My Data Manager.You won’t necessarily know what stream they’ve chosen, but the good news is that… I love it, but the problem is, I’m not in London. It used to be a pirate radio station back in the day, but now those DJ’s have all grown up and they’ve got a proper DAB licence across London. After all, we don’t all have DAB radios all the time and we’re not always in the same broadcast area.īut what bitrate are you listening to? It’s really hard to find out.Īt the moment I’m a big fan of CentreForce 88.3. They do this so that you can listen no matter where you are. If you’ve got a favourite radio station then you’ll probably find that they’re pushing their own app. However, there’s an element of confusion because it’s not always a 128kbps feed you’re listening to. It’s good to keep an eye on how much data you get through. That’s assuming you do this every work day (based on 5 days a week). I’ve looked this up and there’s 4.34524 weeks per month on average. You’re going to use around 120MB (rounded up). You listen constantly on 3G / 4G / 5G to a 128kbps stream. Now, let’s assume that you’re spending an hour getting to work and an hour back. Nowadays most modern cars have in-built Bluetooth, so your phone will just connect your smartphone and streamed music blasts out without the need to buy an FM Transmitter.
![tunein radio the power hour tunein radio the power hour](https://www.scosche.com/media/catalog/product/f/m/fmt4-rp_ps3.png)
![tunein radio the power hour tunein radio the power hour](https://cdn-profiles.tunein.com/p1121555/images/bannerx.jpg)
Better still, most of the time the internet audio streams are better quality than DAB stations. We’ve got DAB radio and music via Spotify or radio stations streamed over the internet. So you can now drive to work and you’re not just restricted to CD’s or FM radio any more.
![tunein radio the power hour tunein radio the power hour](https://cdn-radiotime-logos.tunein.com/s21247d.png)
So, if you’re listening to a “standard” 128kbps radio stream on something like TuneIn for an hour on your smartphone, it’s going to consume 60MB (or 56.25MB to be precise) of data. In reality it’s actually 0.94MB, but 1MB per minute sounds better in my head. The result? Well, it worked very well and I came to the conclusion that a 128kbps steam consumed around 1MB per minute. I was fed up with the slim choice of very “samey” FM radio station so, with the aid of some cabling (or a smartphone FM transmitter) I fed the audio output of my smartphone through my car radio. Some 9 years ago I performed a test of radio streaming over the internet.