Virgin take radio to 3G

7 March 2005 12:51 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Virgin Mobile says it will become the first radio station to offer its radio via 3G mobiles. The soft rock radio station will broadcast of selected 2G and 3G networks in the UK.

Teaming up with a company called Sydus, Virgin will allow users to download a small application via WAP that will allow them to listen to the live stream on their phone.

James Cridland, Head of New Media at Virgin Radio, said, "Creating a viable worldwide platform for radio on mobile phones will revolutionise the reach of radio. Sydus' application will enable anyone, anywhere to listen to Virgin Radio simply with the phone in their pocket. This allows us to tap into a huge new audience and places radio at the heart of the 3G revolution.”

However there does seem to be a catch. To benefit from the service you will need to have an unlimited data package as to listen to the service. You can listen if you are a pay as you go data customer however one hour of radio would involve around 7.2Mb of data, which would prove very expensive for most pay as you go data customers.

The list of compatible phones mostly come from Nokia, however any Symbian 60 OS handset will be able to run the service.

The biggest challenge to the service will be that most of the phones listed, also come with an FM radio built in, meaning you can already get Virgin radio when in the UK without the need to sign up to 3G.

Full tags

Phones, Apps, 3G, Virgin Radio