Mobile data charges for listening to the radio

PabloM

As we all know listening to the radio (AM/FM/DAB) is effectively free whether through your tv, hi-fi, car or portable radio, save for having an appropriate licence.
If, however, you choose to listen via your Smart Phone (such as via a car’s bluetooth facility) you are charged a fortune in terms of data usage, even though there is no need to connect to the internet to listen.
And I wondered why this is allowed ?
Prior to Smart Phones when a phone was a phone and didn't have Wi-Fi ability, many came with free radio listening capability – why has this changed ?
Perish the thought but is this something that has been deliberately orchestrated between the mobile phone manufacturers and operators as a way of being able to charge customers ?
Perhaps someone could please enlighten me.
Thank you

indesisiv

You have to pay for data if you are using your phones data. Which if you are using any app on your phone you will have to pay for.

Most cars come with DAB nowadays so its just the same as an old FM radio in the car. Why would you need to use your phone for that?

Radios were removed from phones as it stopped being a selling point for people, so to save money and space they were removed. Also most places where phones are used for this people would use an app anyway and get the radio through data. Don't forget that other countries have lots more data available on phone contracts for reasonable money.

wongataa

PabloM wrote: »

As we all know listening to the radio (AM/FM/DAB) is effectively free whether through your tv, hi-fi, car or portable radio, save for having an appropriate licence.
If, however, you choose to listen via your Smart Phone (such as via a car’s bluetooth facility) you are charged a fortune in terms of data usage, even though there is no need to connect to the internet to listen.
And I wondered why this is allowed ?

PabloM wrote: »

You told the car's entertainment system to use your phone for music. You told your phone to get music from a 'radio app'. That app streams what it plays over the internet. You specifically told each part to do what it did. Why should that be forbidden. You had the choice to use the free radio portion of your car's entertainment system instead.

PabloM wrote: »

Prior to Smart Phones when a phone was a phone and didn't have Wi-Fi ability, many came with free radio listening capability – why has this changed ?
Perish the thought but is this something that has been deliberately orchestrated between the mobile phone manufacturers and operators as a way of being able to charge customers ?

Manufacturers of phones determined that their customer's didn't use the built in FM radios and so they removed them to save the costs of implementing them. If a vast majority of people don't use features of the products they have then those features will disappear. People prefer putting their own music onto their phones or use music streaming services such as Spotify in full knowledge that these streaming services use their data allowance. There is no funny business going on.

Frozen_up_north

10 to 20 years ago several phones included an FM radio that used the earphone lead as an antenna. These days you would struggle to find a phone with FM radio built in as "everyone" uses their phone to pick up radio stations via WiFi or directly via 3G/4G. My OH has lousy DAB and FM reception at work due to an office full of computers, she listens to Radio 2 via 4G in the mornings and Smooth or Gold in the afternoon... We have an appropriate data allowance, so no extra charges.

We listen to the local UK news while abroad on holiday too, try that on FM.

All pretty straightforward to me, no conspiracy and no fiddling.

Tony5101

Why is it always a conspiracy to extort money from customers, when people use things with absolutely no idea of what they are doing?
It's so easy to come onto a public forum and rant and rave, when really, people should be looking a bit closer to home!

anotheruser

Despite what many people are saying, a lot of phones still have FM radios. However, they NEED the headphones connected, as they also provide the antena to receive the signal.

With many contracts catching up and lavishing people with data, it won't be a problem soon enough.

Many contracts have unlimited data already.
Asda has a 30GB contract at the moment, Three has one that is something like 20GB.
For the past few years, you'd be hard pushed to get more than 1GB without paying huge amounts. They even used to describe 2GB-4GB as "massive". However, loads of £10-ish contracts (sim only) with 4GB + these days.

Jon_01

Tony5101 wrote: »

Why is it always a conspiracy to extort money from customers, when people use things with absolutely no idea of what they are doing?
It's so easy to come onto a public forum and rant and rave, when really, people should be looking a bit closer to home!

It's the modern mentality of always blaming someone else for your own stupidity (and then expecting compensation most of the time!).

glennevis

I use the FM Radio on my smartphone all the time, especially when I go for a walk. No problem with having to plug in headphones since I would not want to broadcast my radio to anyone else. With £5 a month plan, data management is always going to be necessary.

My 4-5 year old Samsung smartphone has everything I want and runs the latest android apps, so I'm not looking for an upgrade but I did note that some of the UK-compatible Chinese phones appear to include FM radio.

d123

PabloM wrote: »

As we all know listening to the radio (AM/FM/DAB) is effectively free whether through your tv, hi-fi, car or portable radio, save for having an appropriate licence.
If, however, you choose to listen via your Smart Phone (such as via a car’s bluetooth facility) you are charged a fortune in terms of data usage, even though there is no need to connect to the internet to listen.
And I wondered why this is allowed ?

Because modern phones don't have radio functionality and you choose to download a radio app to listen to internet radio.

PabloM wrote: »

Prior to Smart Phones when a phone was a phone and didn't have Wi-Fi ability, many came with free radio listening capability – why has this changed ?

Because the majority of users didn't want the hassle and poor quality of FM radios in phones.

PabloM wrote: »

Perish the thought but is this something that has been deliberately orchestrated between the mobile phone manufacturers and operators as a way of being able to charge customers ?
Perhaps someone could please enlighten me.
Thank you

Tinfoil, lots of tinfoil, can solve many conspiracy theories...

Inner_Zone

Frozen_up_north wrote: »

10 to 20 years ago several phones included an FM radio that used the earphone lead as an antenna. These days you would struggle to find a phone with FM radio built in as "everyone" uses their phone to pick up radio stations via WiFi or directly via 3G/4G. My OH has lousy DAB and FM reception at work due to an office full of computers, she listens to Radio 2 via 4G in the mornings and Smooth or Gold in the afternoon... We have an appropriate data allowance, so no extra charges.

We listen to the local UK news while abroad on holiday too, try that on FM.

All pretty straightforward to me, no conspiracy and no fiddling.

d123 wrote: »

Because modern phones don't have radio functionality and you choose to download a radio app to listen to internet radio.



Because the majority of users didn't want the hassle and poor quality of FM radios in phones.

How is it then that my Motorola Moto G (3rd Gen), two Huawei Y300 / 330 smart phones, Fonerange and Nokia dumb phones all have built in FM radio. All purchased in the last one to three years.

As for the OP he needs one of the seven year old kids off the Virgin Media TV advert it he can't work out how to use his phone.

wongataa

Inner_Zone wrote: »

How is it then that my Motorola Moto G (3rd Gen), two Huawei Y300 / 330 smart phones, Fonerange and Nokia dumb phones all have built in FM radio. All purchased in the last one to three years.

Some phones have FM radios. They are not the majority though.