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Buzzwords come and go, some hang around longer than others, some make a bigger impact than others and some just fade away never to be heard again outside the constraints of the über geek circle that still insist on using it. One of the biggest buzzwords of the moment, and one that isn’t likely to disappear anytime soon is ‘WiFi’ or Wireless Internet. According to another staple of the 21st Century connected world, Wikipedia, WiFi is short for Wireless Fidelity and is basically the term used to describe the technology behind a wireless local area network.
 | | With a WiFi radio you wouldn't be tied to the desk |
To put it as simply as possible, a wireless network is basically a little box with an area that plugs into your phone-line, it then sits there until you turn on your laptop or desktop computer and logon to the network. The most common use of a wireless network at home is for letting more than one computer connect to a broadband internet connection. It’s more convenient and cheaper than wiring up your house with a traditional cabled network and now people are using it just for one computer, just because it means the computer can go anywhere within range. But there are other uses for a WiFi network that you might not have thought about, including telephone calls, radio and sharing a printer. The radio one is what I want to concentrate on here because if I mention them all this article will be about 10 pages long and you probably won’t bother reading it all. Back to the beginning WiFi Radio’s basically take the idea of wireless back to its original use, the transmission of sound without wires but updates it for the 21st Century. With a WiFi radio you can listen to more or less any of the 10,000+ radio stations from around the world from anywhere within your wireless networks range. It takes all the inconvenience of having a computer on and the technohassle out of listening to internet radio. You will of course have to set it up but in most cases that’s no more difficult than setting up your wireless network in the first place, but once it’s up and running you just need to sit back and enjoy the sound of radio from around the world. The other reason for concentrating on radio in this article is that WiFi radio is probably one of the most relevant uses of Wireless technology for the island.
 | | Some people DO like being at the desk though |
It is unlikely that Jersey will get DAB anytime soon and there is only a limited number of stations on the FM & AM frequencies in the island which means that if you want to listen to any of the new digital stations from the BBC or other providers then you either need a satellite or the internet. You can listen to over 80 radio stations on satellite or over 10,000 of varying quality from around the world on the internet, not to mention the ever increasing number of on demand services. However neither method is particularly convenient for sitting in the kitchen, the garden or even the toilet if that’s your thing. Radio through satellite is pretty much constrained to the room with the receiver and connection. Radio through the net, unless you have a laptop, is constrained to the room with the computer and aside from the lack of good speakers on most computers, the interface for finding radio stations isn’t that friendly. This is where WiFi Radio comes in. WiFi radio works along the same lines as internet radio in that it connects to the internet to let you listen to radio but the similarity stops there. A Wireless radio is a self contained unit that will work even if your computer is turned off, it lets you scroll a menu of stations (you can also create a pre-set favourite list) and listen to what you want at the click of a button. Broadband ideal As well as live radio more and more WiFi sets are letting you access listen again content from companies like the BBC and Virgin giving you the chance to listen to your favourite shows when you want.
I expect it’s only a matter of time before they have built in podcast functionality so you can download and subscribe to your favourite podcasts and have them delivered straight to your WiFi set but for now live radio and on demand content when you want anywhere in your house is a pretty good prospect. If you have a dial-up or narrowband connection to the internet then you probably won’t get much use out of a WiFi radio, although you CAN listen to radio over the internet with a dial-up connection you may find it difficult to get a WiFi router for a normal modem. The next step According to a report done in 2004 of internet usage in the island by the JCRA 65% of the 35,000 or so homes had access to the internet and according to current figures from Jersey Telecom over 13,000 residential homes have a broadband connection. With the cost recently coming down for a broadband in the island and the cost of WiFi radios likely to drop wireless radio is likely to become more suitable for more people. Some cities in the UK and further afield are installing city wide WiFi, meaning you can connect to the internet from anywhere inside or out in the city. If Jersey were to install this kind of infrastructure then you would be able to use your WiFi radio anywhere you wanted (in the car, on the beach or in your living room), but that kind of infrastructure is likely to be a number of years away if it happens at all. So for now WiFi radio is a technology for the home, a way of listening to over 10,000 radio stations without turning your computer on.
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