Can I use iplayer to listen to the radio on a smart phone, away from wifi? Will it cost me a fortune?

[choccychomp]

That's it really. I work on call at different locations, so can be away from home a lot, but with a lot of spare time. I have a basic mobile phone with fm radio, but would like to be able to choose programmes from radio 4 or 2 through iplayer. No wifi access when I'm at work.

I understand I can pre-download programmes and take them with me, though haven't tried this yet, but I'm after an easy, luxurious answer - all of the programmes I might want at my fingertips wherever I am!!

Is this possible and how much might it cost? I'm not a huge phone user so it would mean going from a very basic payg. If it isn't possible yet, will it be in the future?

Is it an in-built radio or a radio app?

I used to have a phone with its own radio antenna so it didn't cost to use - my current phone doesn't have that, it has a radio app which uses up my data.

My current phone has a built in radio, which is great but means I can only listen to what's currently on, & I have to tune in like a proper radio (i.e. select frequency).

What smartphone do you have ??
Iplayer have a radio app but I'm not sure if it's just for iPhones.

I'll check and be back.

Yep only on iPhone so far. Android is coming soon as it's having a few problems.

PersonalClown, thanks, I was told by someone iPhone didn't, but was convinced they were wrong. Do you know if it uses a lot of memory? Definitely only radio, not tv. Thanks again. Will now start counting my pennies.

Why not just get a small portable radio?

How about using BBC Podcasts? 1/2 hour of radio is typically 13MB of data. Not everything is available as a podcast but many things are.

I use Hapi Podcast on Android, which will check for new podcasts and download them when I'm connected to WiFi, so I can play them later. It can also download over mobile data connection. Podcasts are stored on the memory card - my phone has a 1.85GB of usable space on the SDcard. So I think that's around 142 hours worth of storage space, if it were not used for storing anything else.

The cost of mobile data varies between providers and depending on your type of phone contract. Three PAYG offers a 500MB data add-on (valid for 30 days) for £5. Contract customers can get 250MB data add-on for £2 if they anticipate using more data than already permitted under their contract. I have a £13 per month contract and get All-You-Can-Eat data, which used to be 3GB but I'm not sure what the cap is now, if any. 3 says: "Even if you used your phone for every minute of every day you could only possibly use, subject to traffic management requirements and policy, up to 1000GB each month. So in a sense, there is a data limit of up to 1000GB, which is based on what you can physically use."

Thanks nannynick, that was a really comprehensive answer! Didn't realise how many programmes were available as podcasts, will be thoroughly spoilt for choice.