Why does Radio over the internet cutout so much?

Discussion in 'Computer Science & Culture' started by alexb123, Feb 19, 2015.

  1. alexb123 The Amish web page is fast! Valued Senior Member

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    I listen to a few radio stations online. However, all of them suffer from stopping for no apparent reason on many occasions.

    Why does this happen? I have a 150mb connection.

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  3. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    Even cable TV like CNN from the US does same thing typically for less than a minute here in Brazil. I have assumed it is due to some "hand off" between low earth communication satellites as one goes "over the horizon." TV originating in Sao Paulo is "rock solid" - working when that from US is frozen at last frame.

    Any given LES is above the horizon for only about 15 minutes. Thus most of the time there is no break with the "hand off" but with low probability, which would be very expensive to zero, there is slight delay before the going over the horizon one has another to hand off to.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 19, 2015
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  5. cosmictraveler Be kind to yourself always. Valued Senior Member

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    I thought all satellites were in geosynchronous orbits so that they were always in the same location all of the time. I know that the receivers are pointed at a certain angle to catch the signal from that satellite which never moves.
     
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  7. Doug Coulter Registered Member

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    Not all comm sats are geosynchronous orbit. But far more often the issue is peering between the higher level backbone providers (and most internet is ground level fiber anyway). Just because you have a fast connection, doesn't mean someone doesn't run out of bandwidth somewhere else along the chain, sometimes deliberately, as in the Telco's trying to triple-dip from services like Netflix and deliberately leaving a few router cables unconnected to show that they need more money to do what we, and the other end, have already paid for.
    Eg, it's not really a technical problem in the normal sense, it's extortion.
     
  8. danshawen Valued Senior Member

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    Radio was never meant to be serviced by a packet-switched protocol like the internet uses, and it's a fact; a lot of folks trying to stream audio from internet radio stations and video from whatever source is bound to mean there is some latency or delays in such broadcasts while new packets are delayed, and your enjoyment of the program will be interrupted. You noticed how "jumpy" and uneven the rate at which large chunks of software downloads, right? It's the same limit of the technology, and the only reason you don't notice it with downloads is, you don't usually listen to them while they are downloading.
     
  9. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Because the Internet is designed for packet-based asynchronous communications. It's reliable and moves a lot of data, but throughput depends on a great many things. It is tolerant of collisions and data loss through a mechanism called retry. This guarantees you will always get your data, but perhaps not right when you want it, or in the same order you sent it.

    What you want for radio is isochronous delivery - no guaranteed delivery but guaranteed time-ordered delivery. If you had an isochronous connection you'd occasionally hear dropouts but it would never stop. USB, for example, has an isochronous mode to support streaming audio, but most Internet services do not.
     
  10. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    ISP's can have more effect on this than is suggested. Some have clauses where they provide a service with a "Minimum" potential however it's usually sold based on it's upper potential.

    If you happen to stream a lot of the time, you could find your bandwidth being reduced through traffic shaping. People often don't realise that their connection to the internet actually is shared at the ISP end through a contention ratio (where multiple people in the nearby area use the same cable) If one person is allow to have the Maximum speeds all the time it can deteriorate other peoples connection within that area. So for this reason they can either reduce the bandwidth of the person that's trying to max their connection or by having more people accessing at the same time it can cause a reduction of bandwidth available for everyone overall.

    You'll find that specific peak times will have a serious reduction in bandwidth compared to time periods that are relatively slow and quiet. (The quietest period is usually around 9-10am UTC, the busiest is usually 6-12 UTC)

    That of course is subject to change as more people in more countries become more connected to the internet, since it's based upon timezones and peoples ability to check emails, play games etc.
    The advent of mobile devices has further altered how these time frame function since people no longer have to reach home to check their email, they can do it through their phone at work or in traffic (while not driving).
     

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