Nokia Offering Internet Radio App
|
Richard Baguley Published on December 03, 2007 Comment on this |
|
|
|
|
3rd Dec 07 – Do you have a craving to listen to Polish talk radio during your commute? Nokia has you covered: the European branch of the cell phone giant has just launched a beta test version of a new Internet Radio application that can tune into internet radio stations over either the mobile data connection or an 802.11g wireless LAN.The new application provides an easy way to tune into online radio stations; it contains a directory of hundreds of radio stations organized by genre, language and country that you can connect to. There's a good selection; 142 from the USA and 42 from the UK, for instance. There are a few omissions,though; none of the BBC radio stations that stream online are included, for instance. To listen to a station, you just select it from the list and hit the listen button. You don't need to know anything about bit rates or connection types; the program handles all of that for you.
The current beta version of the program is only compatible with the N95, but Nokia is planning to make it more widely available in the near future. In our initial tests with the beta version, the program worked well; browsing and tuning into radio stations over an 802.11g connection was quick, and the sound quality was good. Running on a new Nokia N95 using AT&T's 3G network, the audio also sounded good, and it seemed to work consistently; the program buffers the streaming audio signal to smooth over any occasional losses of connection (you should make sure that you have an unlimited data plan on your phone if you are planning on trying this program; streaming audio uses quite a lot of data) . We'll have to do more testing to see how well it holds up in areas of low signal strength, but so far, it looks like this could be an interesting alternative to your local radio stations if you get decent cell phone coverage.
|
|
|