[reaperducer]

I love learning about pre-internet ways of transferring data on the back of other things.

I once worked for a radio station that made 90% of its revenue from carrying data feeds on subcarriers, and not from main music programs.

Because of the geographic location and size of the signal, it was a vital link between two major cities before planting fiber optic lines became cheap.

[Scoundreller]

I’m looking forward to cell phones un-shackling themselves from telecom oligopolies through a mix of repurposed satellite uplink and where available: some FM spectrum downlink utilization.

Just stream me the weather, traffic, text msgs & some news stories that a TTS can read out to me.

Won’t work well for streaming a video but for most of us generally on wifi except out-of-doors, I can live with it.

[reaperducer]

Just stream me the weather, traffic, text msgs & some news stories that a TTS can read out to me.

SiriusXM is half way there. It supplies weather and traffic as a data service.

I knew about traffic from way back when the service was new, and found out Sirius Marine Weather a few years ago, but recently rented a car that also had Sirius-delivered weather and traffic alerts.

It was very useful as I was deeply off the grid (no radio stations at all during the day and AM skywave only at night), and the car alerted me to nearby lightning and thunderstorms that I couldn't see because of the terrain.