So a couple of days ago, Bert went off on the FCC again - actually a blog by
Commissioner O’Reilly - that essentially said that the FCC needs to catch up
with reality. The Commissioner wrote about the increasing irrelevance of FCC
regulated industries in the face of services and content delivered via the
“unregulated” - by the FCC - Internet.
Bert is still stuck in a time warp, where we used modems to access AOL to find
out if “You’ve got mail.” I too have been stuck in a time warp, driving a 2000
Chevy Silverado truck for the past 17+ years...
Until I got a new (to me) truck Friday. It’s a 2016 RAM 1500 Laramie Limited,
with just about every electronic capability that is now available. The
difference is much like accessing the web in 2000 via a 38K modem, versus
today, where I have access to just about everything on my phone,, iPAD, and
Apple TV, at speeds fast enough to stream HDTV.
Bert will be impressed - my truck has a radio with HD Radio capability. It also
has Bluetooth that support my iPhone, and apps running on my iPhone -
unfortunately RAM just started supporting Apple Car Play in 2018, but it has
good integration with Siri - now I just need to learn how to use all of this
stuff...
;-(
After picking up the truck Friday we headed to North and South Carolina, for a
1000+ mile orientation cruise, and gastronomic adventure. I “think” I have
found all of the buttons, but still am not sure what they do.
Back to the subject of this post. Commissioner O’Reilly discussed the reality
that much of what the FCC now regulates is becoming irrelevant, in the face of
improved communications technologies delivered via the Internet. While driving
back from Charleston Monday I enjoyed this new reality.
At noon, I wanted to listen to a popular talk radio program. The usual
gymnastics of trying to find “local radio stations” that carry the program, as
we traveled from Charleston to Gainesville, seemed so “last century.”
Last week I downloaded a new App - Radio.com - which our local talk radio
station just hooked up with. So I opened the app and tuned in to our local
Gainesville HD Radio talker as we approached Savannah, Georgia on I-95.
For the next three hours I had uninterrupted “reception,” of the program -
including the unwanted local ads. Commissioner O’Reilly was exactly right; why
would I want to try to tune to multiple broadcast radio stations as I traveled?
I was going to listen to (not watch) the Apple WWDC keynote at 1 pm, but
decided not to subject my wife to that - but I could have. Or I could have
tuned to any of the channels I subscribe to with my DirecTV Now VMVPD
subscription.
Today I was in Ocala and was playing with the HD radio capabilities. Finally
figured out how to get the radio to tune to the sub-channels. The Gainesville
talk radio station is in the FM band and offers one sub channel. As I was
learning how to access this sub channel, I noticed that the radio was
frequently “buffering.” Apparently Ocala is at the fringe of the HD radio
broadcast footprint. When it was buffering, I experienced some echoing between
the analog broadcast and the digital enhancement signals; Had to turn off the
HD radio feature to listen tp the analog signal...
Perhaps Bert can give me some advice on what I should tell Commissioner
O’Reilly about my experiences...
Regards
Craig
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