Still Wating For Wi-Max in My Car (June 19, 2008)

The bandwidth and reach of WiMAX make it suitable for the following potential applications, among them, connecting Wi-Fi hotspots with other parts of the Internet, providing a wireless alternative to cable and DSL for last mile broadband access, and providing portable connectivity.

WiMAX is a long-range system, covering many kilometers that typically uses licensed spectrum (although it is also possible to use unlicensed spectrum) to deliver a point-to-point connection to the Internet from an ISP to an end user. Different 802.16 standards provide different types of access, from mobile (similar to data access via a cellphone) to fixed (an alternative to wired access, where the end user's wireless termination point is fixed in location.)

WiMax can deliver 70 mega bits per second for up to 50 kilometers depending on the terrain. Lowering the range allows a device to operate at higher bitrates. Increasing the range will allow a device to operate at lower bitrates. The bitrates are still high enough to support the continued growth of Internet radio streaming.

An in-dash car stereo that can pick up WiMax so you can listen to Internet radio while you drive your car is a convergence that is long overdue and will become a reality once and when WiMax is widespread. This kind of technology convergence, as well as the dawning of free advertiser supported WiMax, will not only benefit the Internet-only radio stations, it will also cause total chaos for the local radio broadcasters, who will all of a sudden, be faced with trying to stand out amongst a competetive landscape with thousands of Internet radio stations competeting with your time in your car.

In a city the size of Los Angeles, where more people listen to their radios in their cars than in any other city, even New York, it could spell disaster for all of the cookie-cutter music stations owned by the corporations who can't figure out what people want and don't want to hear on the radio. Imagine Groove Radio blasting all over the Los Angeles basin once again thanks to Wi-Max and car Internet radios.

Needless to say, people have figured out what kinds of music they want to hear, and for them, stations that play tween pop acts on CHR radio or loud noise formats isn't what they want to hear. The portable wireless delivery of the kinds of genres that radio continues to ignore will forever change the radio landscape to the point where it would no longer be profitable to run a radio station. They would have to either sell them at a loss or close them down. We could lose many ideas for stations such as 98.7, My, Star, Sound, Jack, KIIS, Wave, and whatever is out there on terrestrial radio. The FM radio spectrum would eventually be turned over in part for WiMax frequency allocations. WiMax transmitters operating at lower bandwidth such as FM or VHF-Lo will allow it to send longer waves to the radio than WiMax transmitters operating at a shorter bandwidth such as UHF or higher. Lower-frequencies allow them to reach a longer range.

Once the limitations of WiMax are corrected, we're going to be getting more stable WiMax signals coming into your cars while you drive. Repeaters of varying wattage would be strategically placed around the metro areas so that WiMax could cover the trouble spots such as valleys and other signal obstrucions.

What we're still waiting for, however, is perhaps the easiest way to tune in Internet radio in your car. The plan is to make a WiMax car radio act and feel like you're using a terrestrial car radio to tune in radio stations. The problem is how would people easily tune in their favorite radio stations?

One portable WiFi radio that I found has a clunky way of tuning in radio stations: with one knob. The one knob selects a letter at a time from a list of letters and numbers that you scroll to find and press to select. Doesn't make sense? It shouldn't anyway. That's too hard to do.

One complicated plan would be to assign each streaming radio station with a number in the same way radio stations are assigned a number, but while radio stations use numbers to represent a frequency, Internet radio stations that use numbers wouldn't represent any particular frequency at all; just a number would all you would have to remember to tune in your favorite Internet radio station.

A simpler way is to load up a USB drive with presets from a website that lets people store their favorite radio station presents by name. They would first connect a USB drive to their computers, log into the website that has the service, load up their USB drive with presets, then disconnect the USB drive from the computer.

Then, enter their car, plug the USB drive into their WiMax car radio, select a favorite station from a list of presets, and they're ready to listen.

An alphanumberic keypad could also be used to tune in radio station websites by name. They could type in radionigel.com by typing it in, then the stream would start and the station would play. Don't try this while you're driving. You can give it a preset so that you can tune it in again by pressing a button.

WiMax costs money to operate, so a way to fund the WiMax operations is for WiMax car radios to tune into special Internet feeds offered by the website that contain paid advertisements that they buy on the stream. A share of the advertising revenue would be diverted to pay a WiMax provider for their services. This would in turn help pay for the upkeep of WiMax technology.

Taking advantage of the current Internet technology of streaming radio in your home is CBS Radio in association with America Online. On March 7th, CBS Radio and AOL "announced a ground breaking partnership whereby CBS RADIO will power AOL Radio (http://radio.aol.com), combining two of the largest online radio networks and giving millions of listeners unlimited and free access to the most diverse lineup of programming available." That's what is says in their official press release here.

This would help get 97.1 Free FM into the WiMax car radios through portable WiMax technology, so you could listen to Adam Carolla and Tom Leykis while you're driving a car in a city that doesn't carry these radio shows. Since CBS Radio put their streams on AOL radio, the number of hours spent listening to the CBS stations went up. In cities such as San Diego where Leykis doesn't air, the results are even higher.

It's the content that drives in the listners, but when thousands more radio stations would be able to reach their car radios, the local broadcasters will have to find a new business model to keep them competetive, such as thinking out of the box and putting on compelling proprietary local content not found on any other station, besides news and public affairs.

People tune in to Internet radio for content that the local staitons won't provide. People want selections beyond stuff that's popular on Clear Channel and Radio Disney. People want maturity without embarrassment in their content. With local radio, all you got that meets the requirements are the radio stations that play music from the pre-MTV era, but people want to hear new music, good new music. They'll get it one way or another.

WiMax car radios are coming for the masses in the future, but which year is anybody's guess. There's no sense of guessing what year we'll first go into Wal-Mart and pick up an WiMax car radio.