Lately though, I've been gearing up to replace Sirius Satellite Radio with Pandora (or something similar) using my smartphone as the driver. I don't want to pay Sirius $12.95 (plus tax) per month anymore! Honestly, I've been looking at this for more than 2 years. When I changed from AT&T to Sprint in October 2011 (with an unlimited data plan), I was looking at this. The problem, for me, was the inconvenience... The radio in my car does not have a Bluetooth audio module, and I am unwilling to pay almost $1000 for it from the dealer. I would really like to upgrade the radio to a new-fangled Kenwood unit that has navigation, bluetooth, etc, etc, etc. However, that unit (with the required Chrysler interface) is even more expensive than the factory upgrade... and there are other priorities in my life that prevent me from paying that much money for a car stereo (kids' education, clothing, and gifts come to mind).
When I bought my car in 2011, it came with 1 year of free Sirius. I transferred my (pay) account to the free 12-month subscription that came with the car. And, then I let it lapse. Since I cancelled, I've received offers as cheap as $19.99 for 6 months of service from Sirius... but I know these are limited-term offers (FYI: I've heard that if you call and claim that you got a letter in the mail offering the $19.99 deal for 6 months, they won't question it). They are only offering this cheap deal in hopes that I will just let it automatically renew at the then-current (higher) rate.
I recently switched from Sprint to T-Mobile, because T-Mobile seems to have the best "Bring Your Own Phone" (BYOP) plan, when compared to the competition (I'm paying $135+tax for four lines with my employer discount. Three of the lines have 2.5GB/month of data each, and the 4th line [mine] is unlimited data)... and... T-Mobile has excellent 4G coverage in Florida (BTW, Sprint had NO 4G coverage in my area, and I'm loving the amazing data throughput on T-Mobile). For reference... On my home ISP (Brighthouse Networks), I get 30Mbps download and 2Mbps upload. On my phone (at home, with 2-bars), I get 32Mbps download and 5Mbps upload). Even when I'm in the local Wal-Mart (with a metal roof, and NO bars), my Internet speed is faster than it ever was on 3G, even when I had 5 bars on 3G. It's amazing.
For full disclosure, I bought two used Samsung Galaxy S4 phones (approx $400 each on e-Bay), one new Google Nexus 5 32GB ($395 on Google Play), and one new Samsung Galaxy Light ($240 from the T-Mobile store). I'm saving more than $100/month... so the phones will be paid-for in less than 10 months.
I get very good data coverage on my drive to/from work. There are only a couple of spots where coverage is iffy... and those only last about 30 seconds each. I think I can live with 60 seconds of silence every day to save $12.95/month! And... my test was done with "data roaming" turned off.
I read an article (here) that said:
The mobile device limitation of 64Kbps confounded me, because... honestly... the sound quality of the Pandora Android app (when the "Higher quality audio" setting is selected [under Settings -> Advanced]), the audio quality is quite frankly MUCH BETTER than Sirius satellite radio! And, I am using the FREE access to Pandora. I am NOT a Pandora ONE subscriber (which, as the article states, would still not give me better audio quality via the mobile app).For users of the free service, Pandora streams AAC+ files in stereo (no multi-channel) at a quality level of 64 kilobits per second via the Web browser. For Pandora One subscribers, it moves up to 192 kbps through the browser/desktop app. In-product apps like those found in a Roku box, Blu-ray player, or A/V receiver stream at 128 kbps. With mobile devices, the quality depends on the device and network, but it is never higher than 64 kbps.
The audio quality is much better than FM radio. Not quite CD quality, but much better than FM. Pandora's Android app provides even better audio quality (but still not quite CD quality).