Will terrestrial radio die out COMPLETELY?

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If cars essentially become cell phones or wireless computers, though, civil authorities could use that band to communicate. Whatever the commercial technology for distance information transmission or exchange, it could be required to accommodate emergency information.

As for broadcast radio, it is increasingly broadcasting online. We’ll probably not “lose” local stations but have the equivalent of every local station in the country or even in the world instead of just the ones we can now receive only locally.

You could say that is losing radio as we know it, but strictly speaking cell phones and wireless internet are just a more versaitile form of broadcast that is both cheaper to transmit and more far-reaching.

Come to think of it, I’ve already used my PC to listen to New Orleans radio stations while I was in Oregon. Those stations never had that kind of reach before they could stream.
 
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You don’t understand, I am the medication. Feeling better yet? Hoorah!
 
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There’s only so much signal the air can carry. I think if terrestrial radio dies it’ll be because that bandwidth will be set aside and used for something else.

Even if wifi becomes strong enough and cheap enough to go as far as conventional radio does, there will still be hobbiests using conventional radio. Until the thing I said above happens.
 
It may someday. I don’t think that day is soon. What will happen more immediately is consolidation. There will be even less local programming than there is now, and it has already decreased significantly. The price for a radio station may drop and you may get some more unusual content.

The same question could be asked of broadcast TV. Right now it seems to be doing OK. But they have also consolidated quite a bit.

There is still a significant percent of the population who grew up with theses methods of transmission that they will continue to use it. When future generations haven’t grow up on it then we might see a more significant decline or change.
 
That’s a strange thing for you to think. In 2012 reports was that the frequency bands were carrying 80 percent of capacity. Things like broadcasters, wifi signals, remote controls of all kinds, anything wireless takes bandwidth. The rights to use the 700Mhz band went up to just under 20 billion dollars.

The spectrum is fixed. And every silly wireless toy or drone or walkie talkie fills it up just like radio stations do.
 
That presumes a fixed technology. Fortunately that is expanding all the time. The first true cell phones were on 900MHz, and expanded into the 2 GHZ and 5Ghz range. Expect more at exen higher frequencies.
 
No I’m not. The spectrum we can use is fixed. There’s only so high it can go before it’s just visible light. We already use the milimiter wavelengths for high tech defense and scientific uses. After extremely high frequency waves at about 30Ghz-about… 300Ghz we’re dealing with far infrared.
 
Technological improvements can increase the efficiency with which we use the spectrum, requiring smaller band gaps.
 
mythbuster1 said:
Technological improvements can increase the efficiency with which we use the spectrum, requiring smaller band gaps.
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There is a limit to this, of course, but I don’t think we’ve tapped out the ways that information can be compressed.

The thing is that we can talk to whomever we want all over the world via cell phone right now. There isn’t any reason we could not tap into the internet and receive a transmission from any program stored or streaming on the internet. That gives us essentially any radio station we want. The only limit I can see is how each radio station is going to get paid. That’s the limit.

I don’t think that people are going to stop wanting hard copies of the music they buy, either, but if it isn’t lucrative enough they’re going to find it hard to buy it. There are still people who like 8-tracks, I suppose, but no one is putting new albums on 8-track.
 
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PetraG said:
The thing is that we can talk to whomever we want all over the world via cell phone right now. There isn’t any reason we could not tap into the internet and receive a transmission from any program stored or streaming on the internet. That gives us essentially any radio station we want. The only limit I can see is how each radio station is going to get paid. That’s the limit.
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I agree completely. But then that’s no longer terrestrial radio.
 
Rhubarb said:
I agree completely. But then that’s no longer terrestrial radio.
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The expense of each station keeping up their own transmission equipment when most of their listeners stream their programming would be like Sears keeping up the expense of sending out 5 lb paper catalogs when everything they sell can be viewed and ordered online. When technology advances, businesses advance with it, based not on what is sentimental but what is cost-effective.

If it is local broadcasters providing the content, though, the effect of having local stations hasn’t changed. The people who maintain the transmission infrastructure will just work for different entities.
Rhubarb said:
That’s a strange thing for you to think. In 2012 reports was that the frequency bands were carrying 80 percent of capacity. Things like broadcasters, wifi signals, remote controls of all kinds, anything wireless takes bandwidth. The rights to use the 700Mhz band went up to just under 20 billion dollars.

The spectrum is fixed. And every silly wireless toy or drone or walkie talkie fills it up just like radio stations do.
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This is a reason to think that local stations will be priced out of having their own bandwidth, rather than live-streaming from the internet. When something is in high demand, the price you have to pay to control it goes up.

The other thing is that if you live-stream you can charge listeners directly for content or, if you provide a free stream, you can provide listener data directly to interested advertisers. You can demonstrate who is listening even if only a free log-in is required to listen.
 
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post removed in order to consolodate with another post…
 
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