Internet and LAN Network Communications Capability
By
John Schad, President Smarts Broadcast Systems
Many new Smarts products make extensive use of The Internet to move data from station to station, Move real time audio between stations, provide instantaneous evaluation and correction of problems, and provide training in your station by our personnel across the Internet Link.
To get full benefit of your Smarts equipment you must have an Internet connection. It is our strong recommendation that you carefully consider the bandwidth requirements of that connection before you contract with an Internet Provider. There are many different connection options at many different prices. As with anything else, you get what you pay for. Here’s our suggestions on what you should pick for internet options when using it with our equipment packages.
All of the below options are useless unless you have a reliable Internet connection. Be sure that the system you pick can provide you with 24/7 reliability and support in the event of a problem. No matter how fast the connection is, it is valueless if it is not there.
From least expensive and least effective to the other extreme, here are the options:
Connection: Dial
Up
Average cost: $20
per month
This level of Internet service is what many people have grown accustomed to over the past several years. It did provide for a limited amount of web browsing but is virtually useless for any direct connectivity or large file transfers. There are three several primary objections:
Smarts does not recommend dial up connections for use with Smarts equipment. It has too many limitations
Connection:
Satellite (e.g. Direct Way)
Cost: 69.00 per
month
Usefulness:
Moderate
Satellite connectivity is very fast on file downloads and moderate on file uploads. It is quite useful in sending files via The Internet to Smarts for evaluation, but has a latency issue that may make it difficult to use this type of connection for extensive training. Since the satellite is located about 23,000 miles above the Earth’s equator, there’s a lag time from the time a command is issued until it is received. Any interactive training (such as showing your staff how to use a particular screen on one of our systems) will reflect that lag. The satellite signal is asynchronous, with an upload speed of 156 K and as much as 400 K coming down. That limits the speed at which you can upload files destined to other stations. Also the satellite provider limits file transfer under a fair access policy that would prohibit use of this service for audio streaming or other intensive file transfer usage. The advantages of a satellite connection is that it is relatively stable and is persistent so there’s no connection process to go through in order to use The Internet. This may be the best technology available to stations located far outside of their communities (e.g. transmitter site) where other wireless or wired technology is impossible to acquire.
Cost: $35 per month
Usefulness:
Moderate
Cable modems provide persistent connections and decent download speeds but seem to suffer more swings in speeds due to usage limitations. Moreover, a typical cable modem installation is asynchronous, with the upload speed considerably slower than the download speed (similar to the satellite system above). This stretches the time it takes to upload files to other stations. It is a bit more satisfactory than the satellite alternative due to the lack of the fair access policy, and is less expensive to install. It is a viable alternative for stations that have cable access.
Connection:
DSL/Wireless
Cost: $50-$100
per month
Usefulness:
Extremely useful, very cost effective
DSL is a technology that piggy backs an RF carrier (radio signal) directly on an existing telephone line. It has one big limitation at this time, in that it can only be used within a few thousand feet of the telephone central office. That may mean that the station is too far away to make use of the technology. Phone companies are making great strides at breaking down that barrier. A DSL connection usually is offered at bandwidths beginning at 128 mbs and expanding through 512 mbs (more on special contract). The more you pay, the more bandwidth you get. This is probably the best alternative for most radio stations today. Generally a 256 mbs connection will provide sufficient speed for everything Smarts needs, and give you a zippy connection to the computers in your office. To decide the connection bandwidth, you need to look at utilization. If you are going to do any real-time audio streaming (using The Internet as an STL connection, or streaming audio directly to listeners) you need to get the highest bandwidth you can afford to purchase. Steaming audio is unforgiving in that it cannot wait for other traffic, but must arrive in real time. DSL will generally not provide sufficient bandwidth for audio streaming to listeners because each listener loads the system and increases the bandwidth requirements. A DSL can be used for a few listeners to the audio stream (under 30), and the higher bandwidth DSL will suffice for STL use where the audio stream has only one recipient. In extreme cases it may be necessary to either purchase more bandwidth or add a separate DSL service so that the audio stream does not share bandwidth with other applications. Wireless is functionally very similar to DSL except that it uses a radio link to provide the connection rather than the phone line. It is available in the same bandwidths and if properly configured is identical in usefulness. Many people downplay wireless as an inferior connection. This is not necessarily the case and often internet providers can provide wireless connections that approach T1 speeds. This may be a viable and inexpensive alternative to DSL service in your area. Usually wireless connections can only occur within 1 to 7 miles (depending on the system) of the wireless tower.
Connection: T1/T3
Cost: $250-$1,200 per month
Usefulness: Great
when extreme bandwidth is needed
T1 is a special telephone circuit that can be run to your station, and usually is billed according to the distance from the central office. It provides a bandwidth of 1.54 mbs, (one million 540 thousand megabits compared to 56 thousand mb for a dial up connection, so it has nearly 30 times the bandwidth). Usually this is overkill for a radio station, unless the station wants to stream audio to a large number (100 or more) listeners. Check with your local phone company to determine cost and availability. A T3 connection is 100 times faster than a T1 and is an extreme answer that would rarely be used by a radio operation.
All the options above are generally available two ways, as a standard connection with a dynamic IP address or with a fixed IP address. Some internet providers will not provide a fixed IP but most will for an additional cost of around 15-20 dollars per month. To understand the concept of a fixed IP, consider what our telephone system would be like without phone numbers assigned to the phone. When you pick up the phone, you would be automatically connected to a central voice mail system where you could leave a message for the intended recipient, and when he picked up the phone he would get and reply to your message. Such a system would not require any phone numbers be issued to the phones because no one phone ever had to access another phone directly. All calls would be made only to the central voice mail system. There would be no need for a bell, because without a phone number, no calls could be made to your phone. The system would for technical reasons assign you a phone number when you picked up the phone to call the central system, but that phone number would change every time you picked it up.
This is how dynamic IP, used by 90% of the people on The Internet works. It works well because the available IP addresses or “phone numbers” can be distributed to the people that need them at that moment, and most web surfers don’t need to download files or otherwise make a direct connection to any other computer other than primary internet web sites. This is generally not true in utilization of The Internet for radio stations. Without a fixed IP, stations will either have to use a third party service that will track their current IP address and relay it to other locations, or will have to contract for server space on a central server with a fixed IP (the voice mail in the example above) to act as a clearing house that is accessible to the other sites for all data. Our recommendation is to get a fixed IP if you can. This greatly simplifies everything and is well worth the extra money.
One thing you need to be aware of. The Local Area Network (LAN) in your radio station is probably running at up to 100 mbs. That means that even the most expensive alternative above, the T1, is really only moving data at 1.5% of the speed of the data connections from computer to computer within your station. For this reason Smarts uses a multitude of background transfer schemes from The Spider system to a Linux R-Sync system to move data slowly but continuously in the background. This means that if you want to move spots from place to place, you must allow some time for the transfer to happen. Generally you will not be able to purchase sufficient bandwidth to allow real time audio transfer. While this may happen in the future, Smarts has many viable options now that will effectively move audio and data through any reasonable persistent connection.
An oftern overlooked element in your Internet/LAN network scheme is the transition point between the Internet and your own internal network. In addition to a wide varience in speed between the two, connecting your LAN to the Internet requires certain considerations to protect your internal system from worms, viruses, hackers and other Internet related problems. This problem is usually resolved through the use of a router or gateway that links the Internet connection back to your internal LAN. Routers act like an internal telephone system that links a few outside phone lines to numerous extensions within a building. The router IP address is seen on the Internet but not all the computers behind it. The computers have internal IP addresses, not unlike telephone extensions. The router can be programmed to allow certain services to reach certain computer but not others, so the computers are secure from all the hazards of the Internet but able to take advantage of all the assets that the Internet provides. Smarts Broadcast Systems can provide you with the technology and the expertise to set up a router to protect your internal operation while giving you efficient use of the Internet within your radio station.
Stations frequently need to be able to access digital audio systems, traffic systems and other computer systems from remote points. The same access is used for troubleshooting purposes if some component fails. By proper system design, the remote access to critical computers can be achieved without compromising the integrity of the units by exposing them directly to the Internet.
Our best advice on Internet usage is to make sure it all works together. Proper planning of your LAN network and your internet connection will provide you with years of high efficiency operations through virtually effortless information exchange. That’s why Smarts is offering optional packages such as IT services for your station and server space rental that can optimize your use of The Internet without a high price tag. Please contact us at 800 747-6278 or at info@smartsbroadcast.com for more information.