Rdio Shift Frequencies to Free Stations

Competition is getting stiff in the Streaming Audio Market and Rdio has come to realize that it may need to offer a bit more incentive to garner more subscribers. Starting now Rdio will ofter free stations radio service to everyone, to compete more directly with Pandora and Spotify.

Rdio radio will be much the same as its competitors in that the service will offer randomized, category-based, music stations.  The differing feature will be that you will be able to tune the stations away from one artist to a wider spectrum.  Additionally, as a current subscriber, you will be receiving some new playlist functionality.

In widening its market to subscribers who would be less likely to pay for a streaming audio service, Rdio's reach will expand.  The hope is, as it is with most of these services, to convert as many listeners to subscribers.

Personally, I'm still stuck on Google Music, because of the fact that for the intro price of $7.99 / month I get to listen to whatever, whenever, and as much as I want.

Struggling to [ab]use Unlimited Data

I was so excited about T-Mobile opening up the pipes and allowing a nearly unlimited flow of data.  Realistically there is a definite amount of data that could be use by any account holder; that being the full bore for all time of the billing cycle.  Alas, I've never had more than 15 Mb/s download speeds in any location, so effectively the maximum I could acquire is roughly 5TB.  In any case, my usage did not come anywhere close to that this month.

I expected that I might blaze a trail of downloads and internet streaming services with the new pipe.  I immediately stopped using WiFi at home and work for the audio streaming and podcast services that I listen to.  I moved to using streaming audio in the car at all times.  I went out of my way to download files on my phone including two full length Google Play movies, and even tested the waters of Mobile Hotspot sharing.  In all my activities between September 12 and the end of my billing cycle, I managed to use a whopping 5GB combined data throughput.

Alas, I feel dumbfounded that I cannot burn a hole in my digital pocket like some, but there are many more months of testing to come.