Data Allowance and radio apps

OPENROAD

Hi

Not to up to date on technology so please go easy

Thinking of getting the IPhone 3 OR 4, but just looking at the allowances, on Vodafone for instance for 35 euro you get 500 mb with the IPHONE 4

Now one of the apps that appeal to me is to be able to listen to a foreign radio station however in doing this, is this likely to eat up my allowance.

Another related question to the radio apps, when you download the particular radio station app and are listening to it do you need to have a strong 3g signal?

Tom Dunne

A rough calculation is as follows:

Assuming a 32Kbits/s stream (this is what the Today FM app uses, I believe)

32Kbits / 8 = 4Kbytes/s x 60 = 240 Kbytes/s x 60 = 14400 Kbytes per hour

= approx 14Mb per hour of listening

So for 500 Mb you would get around 35 hours of listening per month

It all depends on what the stream rate is - the higher the rate, the higher the quality, the more it eats into your data allowance.

fergusb

A good app for Foreign radio is TuneIn Radio, has loads of stations from around the world.

With regards to data usage, it depends on the radio stream. For example, Newstalk radio app lets you select between 32kbps and 64kbps. From a bit of basic maths, if listening to the 64kbps feed, you will use approximately 29mb per hour. So with a 500mb tariff you can listen to a bit over 17 hours of radio a month.

Obviously with the 32kbps feed you get double that. With o2, for 40 a month you get 1gb+ a month (can't remember exactly what the limit is) so might be a better option if you intend to use a lot of data.

Also in terms of radio reception, for a 64kbps stream you probably would need a 3g connection. However I've listened before with a good Edge connection to 32kbps and was fine.

All that said, don't listen to radio a huge amount on my iphone so other people probably have better advice!

OPENROAD

Thanks to both of you guys, help much appreciated

Dodge

fergusb wrote: »

With o2, for 40 a month you get 1gb+ a month (can't remember exactly what the limit is) so might be a better option if you intend to use a lot of data.

For the iphone 4 its €45 a month, and the allowance is 500mb

fergusb

Dodge wrote: »

For the iphone 4 its €45 a month, and the allowance is 500mb

Mmm interesting, looks like o2 have changed their pricing again. When I upgraded to iphone4 last summer I got a 40euro Advance150 tarif which included 'unlimited' data.

Jimdagym

The 40 quid 3 package comes with 2 gig a month.
Mixed reports of service and coverage, but i cannot complain.