Net gives pirate radio the last laugh

YOU are chilling out to your favourite songs on your car radio, only to have them drowned out by an appalling, fuzzy din you didn't tune into. It happens all too often in cities, where legitimate stations in the FM band lose out to pirate stations playing their own brands of music alongside brash nightlife advertising.

And this hijacking of the airwaves won't change any time soon, thanks to the internet.

So says airwave watchdog Ofcom, which manages and protects radio frequencies for the UK government. Ofcom cites two major threats in its annual enforcement report: keeping pirate stations off the air and preventing people buying and using illegal radio-frequency equipment designed to jam cellphones. In both cases, the internet is aiding and abetting "spectrum crime" - hijacking radio frequencies which broadcasters, including legitimate radio stations and cellphone companies, have already paid huge sums to use, says Ofcom.