Streaming audio question for you smart phone users

[geepondy]

I like my itouch so much I've been considering getting an iphone, particularly when the next generation model is released soon. The new AT&T data plans may be a show stopper though. One thing I like to do with my itouch is listen to streaming music, such as Pandora. I now of course with the itouch do this over wifi but if I got an iphone I would want to do this over 3G for several hours a week as I go on long walks. I have a feeling I would eat right thru the new 2 gig data limit. Are my fears founded?

 

[mattheww50]

Very little music is encoded at more than 128kbps, which works out to about 56mb/hour (just under 1mb/minute).
So each gB of available capacity is about 18 hours per gB. So a 2Gb plan would give you about 8 hours per week at the minimum, if the music is encoded at a lower rate, the 2Gb would go further.

 

[geepondy]

Darn, that's probably not going to cut it, especially throwing in some web browsing and email. Probably 4 gig would. I wonder if Apple has any opinion or influence on AT&T's decision. This can only hurt new sales of the iphone.

 

[LukeA]

Yep. The iPhone's a great piece of hardware and software crippled by a terrible 3G network. I'm an iPhone user, and AT&T is a bunch of ... well this is a family forum.

 

[geepondy]

Guys, do you know what the typical streaming rate is for talk radio or podcasts? I would think it must be considerably smaller then the 128kbs stream of music.

 

[LukeA]

Here's a link I think you'll like. It's got a link to a good free streaming radio app and the article is about the new data plans and what they mean for streaming radio to the iPhone.

 

[geepondy]

Thanks Luke, that's an informative link. I would explore other network options but AT&T is the only one that comes in at work. I'd love the option of watching unrestricted HULU but that isn't even possible with the iphone (no flash support).

 

[carrot]

I think you are overestimating your proposed data consumption. I pretty much exclusively use 3G to browse the web and watch YouTube and yadda yadda yadda on my iPhone and I have never gone over 500MB in a month. A good portion of my CPF posts are from the iPhone as well. I am not usually sitting at a desk all day browsing the web on my iPhone (that's what computers are for) but I do use the iPhone rather heavily, many days draining the battery down completely.

I do not tether and I do not regularly stream, but I think you can survive on 1.5GB of streaming audio.

 

[LukeA]

Thanks Luke, that's an informative link. I would explore other network options but AT&T is the only one that comes in at work. I'd love the option of watching unrestricted HULU but that isn't even possible with the iphone (no flash support).

Don't you have wifi at work?

 

[GarageBoy]

My dad does nothing but use the ebay app on his iPhone and read a photo forum. He racks up 1.8GB each month

 

[LukeA]

...and read a photo forum...

Well there's why. The iPhone still has to load the full-res image from the website just like any other computer.

 

[jslappa]

You'll be fine with the 2gb cap. I have never used 2gb of data in a given month. For the past 2 years, I have used my iPhone to tether exclusively for Internet access. In other words, the only Internet available in my home is through my iPhone. In fact, I finished my degree with University of Phoenix Online. 2+ years of tethering every single day for Internet service. I'm using it right now!

You'll need to stream movies and download tv shows from iTunes to break that cap. However, when you are counting your data used, don't forget that the iPhone uses data all day long just sitting idle. Unless turned off, it's constantly checking for mail and wifi hosts.

 

[paulr]

The whole concept of streaming audio (much less streaming over expensive cellular spectrum) never made sense to me. Why not just load all your music onto your phone or ipod from your pc, and play it directly without streaming?

 

[Launch Mini]

I have been thinking similar with Sirius radio. I have not yet let it play for say an hour and see how much data was downloaded.

 

[bobisculous]

I recently got a Droid incredible. I use it quite a bit, specially since its new. In my first billed month which was just short of a full month, I used 1.99 gb. That's listening to podcasts and iheartradio a lot. While I agree, 2gb is enough for many, its not enough for all. Not this two percent crap ATT is talking about.

Talk radio streams tend to be in the 56 kb/s area in my experience.

 

[gadget_lover]

The ironic part about the 2 gb per month cap is that it will have absolutely no impact on their network.

It will convince people to pay more for what they have, and will keep them from abandoning their other services like a broadband card or DSL line.

My reasoning is simple. They will only pass a certain amount of data at a time to each user. If too many users are wanting data, then all of them get slightly lower throughput BUT the exact same total amount of data. When the network is loaded it takes 10 seconds to download that picture instead of 7. Unless they have designed the network really bad, the whole picture will still get there even when it's very badly overloaded.

So the total bytes is a red herring designed to let them charge more. If the wanted to cut back on usage they should do what DSL does, and charge by the speed that they will deliver it. You'd have a 56KBPS, 750KBPS... 4MBPS service. But then they could not brag about having the fastest network.


Oh, on topic: I listen to an hour of streaming Sirrus or AOL radio each business day while walking. Less than 1GB a month.

Daniel
P.S. You know they are lying about too much network usage when they disable tethering but will sell you a broadband PC card that does the same thing using the same cellular channels and network... for $59 a month.