All we hear is Radio Ga Ga...

Okay, I have an idea. It happens sometimes.

The Old
It concerns something that is a large part of my life, and quite a few
others as well, the radio. Radio has been around for a long time, but
it has advanced relatively little in that time in reality. It seems
for something as much a part of daily life, some more practical
changes would be made.

Let's recap a bit. First, there was AM. Very simple, long range, and
cheap. It also has an audio quality that lands it somewhere in one of
the levels of hell to listen to, especially in an cramped automobile
(Shannon tells me that watching PBS telethons are one of the other
levels of hell with which I agree completely).

Next comes FM, still fairly simple engineering principles at work,
much better sound quality with the tradeoff of reduced range.
However, we still have the problem of poor quality at long ranges or
with poor tuning. Also, because it is free airwaves floating in the
ether for anybody to grab, it is funded by bludgeoning the listeners
with commercials.

This is where the medium pretty much stagnated from the early 1970's
until the very late 1990's. Then, spacemen intervened and hooked us
up with sounds from much higher above. Satellite radio appears from a
few companies, XM (intended to identify it as the successor to AM and
FM although it is not an acronym containing modulation) and Sirius. I
didn't think much of satellite radio until I actually purchased it
when we bought a new vehicle. It is fantastic. The music channels
are completely devoid of commercials, it is just non-stop music. I
have close to 100 channels that are all available in perfect, digital
quality no matter where I travel in the country (except going under
overpasses and behind buildings -- damn line of sight technology).
The one drawback noted by some is that since there aren't commercials
to fund operations, a monthly subscription fee is required. Well
worth it in my opinion though.

I'll throw a quick aside in here, HD radio should be mentioned as
well. A relatively new development, still not very widely adopted.
Really it is an incremental technology, rather than revolutionary. It
is in simple terms a means of embedding a digital signal on top of the
standard FM carrier. Since it is digital, as long as you can receive
the signal in a somewhat reasonable fashion, you will have perfect
quality. Some will also point out as a benefit that unlike satellite
radio which charges a fee, HD radio is once again a free technology.
My opinion is that it is just a way to listen to the same short
playlists and annoying commercials in a restricted area, just in
better quality. I'm not saying I'm not glad the technology was
introduced, I'm sure eventually it will completely replace standard
FM, I just don't see any revolutionary improvements.

The New
Okay, if you stayed awake through the history lesson, you are ready
for my idea. As I mentioned, I like my satellite radio. However, I
still find its selection limited sometimes. Also, although the
randomness of radio can be a good thing, sometimes I just want to
listen to a certain set of music. I could lug CD's with me, or hook
up an iPod or something through my radio to solve that.

Or....what if there was an online music service that partnered with
some media distributor (probably satellite) to deliver whatever songs
I wanted from their store at any time? The underlying cost structure
would likely involve a system such as that offered by Napster. The
user would pay a monthly fee, and have access to unlimited streamed
music. iTunes is rumored to have something similar in the works. In
many ways, this would then resemble the satellite radio that I like,
but with a more customizable solution. Heck, maybe we don't even need
the online store. The current satellite providers may have more than
enough music selection now, we just need more control over what is
sent.

This is where my idea falls flat for the time being. How do you
provide custom streams? There probably isn't enough bandwidth to send
down every song available, just in case somebody wants it, no matter
the compression used. Also, how do you setup the stream, does it have
to be programmed at home, or will there be terrestrial communication
that tells the satellite what to stream down? I don't have the
answers here, hopefully future technology will solve them.

Until that point, it would be cool to have a fast wireless connection
from the car to the house, dump my entire music library wirelessly
over to a huge storage device accessible from my radio, and then
provide my entire library as just one more channel for music.

I will end my rambling here. It didn't really end up where I wanted
it to go. Ideas always work must better in the morning before I wake
up enough to realize the technical limitations.