"You can just listen on your computer, tablet or smart phone?" Yes - that's exactly how they work. Pandora, Slacker and Spotify are websites to connect to, and most have custom apps for most hardware types beyond just PCs. The signups are free. They have a multitude of preconfigured genre stations, but in addition users can have personally customized stations - Say you want to listen to Beatles music, you create your own "station", give it a name, and tell them what artists to include. If a song comes up you don't like, there's a place to click that says "Don't play this song again on this station". If a song comes you up don't want to listen to at the moment but you do at a later time, you can skip on to the next song on the playlist. Each site will remember your stations and preferences for use at a later date. Sites like I Heart Radio and TuneIn are different, they aggregate streams of broadcast stations so that you can find them all in one place. You're in Denver, but like a radio station located in Seattle. If the Seattle station provides an internet stream, these two sites (and others) allow you to listen to it. Most radio stations block live sports broadcasts, so it's not a way to listen to your favorite Dodgers play-by-play when you're in London. "The article mentions "home audio systems." Are there systems which hook up to wi-fi so you can listen to music that way?" Exactly. If you want just a stand-alone player in your kitchen, for example, take a look at products (called Internet Radios or Wifi Radios) by Sangean or Grace. If you want a more comprehensive system to connect to a stereo or standalone speakers and to play a digitized music collection IN ADDITION TO the above discussed internet sources, then consider Sonos or Apple Airport Express. Both of these different types of products can be controlled from a PC, but they also have apps that allow you to control them from any tablet or smartphone. Also, some TVs or disk players come with Pandora or Slacker apps, to stream the music through the TV. With a smartphone and a Pandora or similar account, you can connect the phone to your car's audio system (through Bluetooth, or an AUX or USB connection) and continue to listen to the internet sound source while you drive.

When I switch from antenna to HDMI I get a menu displayed from the Roku. The menu lists Amazon, Pandora Hulu, Netflix, Plex, and about 10 other streaming services. I use primarily Amazon (free with Prime), where many shows and movies are free, while others require payment. The Roku has similar buttons to a VCR remote, so you can stop, start, and pause any show or movie you select. I also just set up a Plex server on one of my PCs, and was able to access it from my Roku. Since my son has made a digital copy on the PC of many of our DVDs (ripped), to take on a laptop when we travel, I am now experimenting with accessing my movies using Plex from my Roku. Overall the setup seems fairly simple, although I have to leave my PC on to act as a server. Plex also allows streaming of music, but I haven't tried loading anything from my own CDs yet. Bruce

Coming back to update this thread. I did check with a couple neighbors and found that others were having problems as well. I called CenturyLink back a few times to keep them alert and bring techs out for potential diagnosis, repair AND to keep them driving 20-40 miles and their time=money so that centurylink would feel obliged to do something. The first tech out agreed with me that the system was over loaded but had the good news that a supervisor was going to be moving to a home just down the street and would likely see the problem for himself. Unfortunately for centurylink, they have some auto software that emails me to let me know that my problem has been fixed (since the tech has been here) rather than saying something reasonable like 'we are working on it'. That ticked me off so I called for more repair. The next tech agreed that there was a problem and upgraded the 'repair ticket' to a higher up department (who actually called me saying they were working on it and would get back to me; but they didn't). Last week (following me calling again after another 'all OK' when not OK, the pair of techs said there were 12 complaint calls and that they had found that the local distribution box had old 'slow cards' that they were now replacing. They said 6 lines per card, and I knew the system had approx. 270 homes so that's a lot of newer cards. I'll bet centurylink knew about it all the time but were waiting until enough folks whined about it. With card replacement, the speeds are almost always above 9mbits/sec even under evening load. Guess you were right Steve.

Even though I am a member of several NPR stations, I do stream from others also without any problem. In fact, I've never had a problem due to lack of membership. I'll try MPR myself and see if I have trouble. I use apps on my iPhone(s), iPad, my Yamaha AVR, my computer(s), and my BlueSound speaker (BlueSound is a high resolution version of Sonos). As I write this, I am listening to NCPR (North Country Public Radio) via it's internet streaming service. My primary complaint is that most (all?) of these stations have ads which come on when I initially connect (at least on my iPhone), which I can accept. But if the connection breaks (usually right when something interesting is coming over the stream), and reconnects, the ad repeats. I wish I could log on to the station with my membership information and skip those ads.