No, according to Per Borga from Teracom in Sweden.
 
Speaking at the National Radio Conference, Borga outlined a study conducted in Sweden to discover whether radio broadcasting could be delivered via mobile streaming.
 
If Sweden turned off radio broadcast transmitters and all consumption went to the mobile network, it could not cope.
 
Looking at the population’s radio consumption habits, the study concluded that it would take 270 billion minutes of listening per year to be transferred as data to replace all free to air broadcast listening.  
 
That would be 10 times more than the current voice call traffic in that country and would consume 190,000 terabytes of data per year (more than all the transferred data for a full year for all mobile networks in Sweden).
 
It would cost €860 million per year.
 
Borga concluded “it would cost more and use more capacity than networks have at the moment. Distribution of radio through cellular networks is not a realistic option at this time, terrestrial broadcasting will be needed for the foreseeable future.”
 
Prof Reg Cootes agreed with the assumptions in the Australian context, saying that free to air broadcasting will need to continue for a long time yet in Australia.