1 of 1- RadioActive
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Will You Have To Pay Monthly To Get Any Radio At All In Your New Car?
The fear is the answer may well be "yes." And unlike recent stories about car makers dumping AM, it may also apply to FM. I've been reading about this creeping (and creepy) approach to weaseling more money out of your wallet for some time, the kind of plan that you'd normally associate with a Bell or a Rogers - take something that's been free for decades and find a way to make you pay for it.
Only in this case, it's not the telcos - it's the carmakers, who want to find a way for you to keep shoveling money to them after you've already purchased that expensive new vehicle. The plan is to remove both AM & FM and force you to pay a monthly fee for a streaming service that would connect you to your favourite over-the-air radio station or some other entity if you want the convenience of radio, music, traffic or news in your car.
According to Alan Cross:
"It’s not that much of a leap for automakers to move to a situation where they charge a subscription for other radio tuner software — say Radioplayer Canada or TuneIn — that offers access to terrestrial radio. That could mean we’ll have to pay for AM and FM.
Yep. No more free audio entertainment from your car via the good ol’ AM or FM radio in the dashboard. The only antenna the vehicle will have is something that receives 5G (and beyond) signals for streaming data directly to the dashboard."
He notes it's still - you should pardon the expression - a ways down the road, but he and others like him believe it may be the future of in auto-listening. So take good care of your current car if you've got one. Or be prepared for a long trip in silence in the future if you don't want to shell out for what you've gotten for free for more than half a century.
How much longer will new vehicles come with AM/FM radios?
- ig
- Iain Grant
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Re: Will You Have To Pay Monthly To Get Any Radio At All In Your New Car?
And the real scam is the automakers include so much technology in the radio to control and monitor the car, that they can now say the car warranty is void if you remove it and change it for an am/fm or usb or whatever player.
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
- newsguy1
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Re: Will You Have To Pay Monthly To Get Any Radio At All In Your New Car?
I can't beiieve they would be allowed to do that.
What's next. The car comes without an engine that you have t purchase separately?
- RadioActive
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Re: Will You Have To Pay Monthly To Get Any Radio At All In Your New Car?
newsguy1 wrote:
I can't beiieve they would be allowed to do that.
What's next. The car comes without an engine that you have t purchase separately?
Hey! Stop giving them more ideas!
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Thread Starter- mace
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Re: Will You Have To Pay Monthly To Get Any Radio At All In Your New Car?
Looks like I will keep my boring beige four door 2006 Toyota Camry for a few more years. Only 105000 km and the uncomplicated radio still works great.
- ig
- Iain Grant
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Re: Will You Have To Pay Monthly To Get Any Radio At All In Your New Car?
Just like OnStar, everyone wants their finger in the pie, and the winner will be the person who gets a never ending piece of the auto internet revenue. First year, free hardware, free etc 
.
Guess who the front runner is in trying to lock up mobile contracts with the manufacturers. I'd look for an XM/Sirius sale sometime in the near future or the announcement of a competitor, and Mr. Musk could deliver everything to the auto and everything to the manufacturer. Sat-nav, local weather, emergency alerts, up to the second traffic meanwhile uploading everything from engine monitoring to travel and traffic info.
And if he can get to your car with internet, which Sirius can't, then why would you pay for both services? Everyone wants wifi in the car right.
Tell all your friends
They can go my way
Pay your toll, sell your soul
Pound-for-pound
Costs more than gold
The problem will be Starlink doesn't cover all northern North America, yet. but they will put a satelite or terrestrial repeat if the demand is there.
If you've listened to 680 online (and others.. um.. soon) you'll notice they geo-tag your stream and send you specific spots based on where you are. I get local pizza pizza specials and messages from local government for example. I've said for years the only way traffic will ever be worth something in this city is when the same thing happens. 4 or 5 zones and you get the traffic you need. A long way from pressing a button at CHFI to fire off Blaupunkt Automatic Radio Information (ARI) system in 1981 . Imagine what a geo-tagged stream from cars driving across the 401 would be worth. I proposed 'sort of' this back in 2006 for an interesting project being launched but nobody could wrap their head around what I was talking about. (that was before internet in cars, and based on using an FM SCA Channel to provide different area information on breaks)
I can't beiieve they would be allowed to do that.
What's next. The car comes without an engine that you have t purchase separately?
Last edited by ig (April 9, 2023 7:21 pm)
Madness takes its toll. Please have exact change.
- turkeytop
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Re: Will You Have To Pay Monthly To Get Any Radio At All In Your New Car?
I can't beiieve they would be allowed to do that.
What's next. The car comes without an engine that you have t purchase separately?
No. It will have an engine. It just won't operate unless you subscribe.
I started out with nothing and I still have most of it.