Streaming Over Cellular 1x Data Network

[hitsfmdj]

Hello I Have found some topics about this but nothing that explains much of it.

For all those that might be Interested in this, Mostly people that have real radio stations that are streamed online and would like to listen to their station on the road in the car when there out of range.


So what I'm doing is I have a subsciption to unlimited data package from Bell, You get a little pcmcia wireless modem card for your laptop to access the network. Ping is almost like a Satelite dish, I guess do to the distances of the towers and what not im not to sure but the ping everages to about 300-400ms. Speeds average from 133kbps download and upload 95kbps. It is a little faster then dailup.

So my Idea was to setup a stream of my radio station over my Internet connection over there and tune in with the laptop in the car no matter where I am as long as theres Cell coverage. So I tried playing with this. I noticed that this kind of connection is not that great at uploading and downloading at the same time and bogs down to about dail up speeds when your maxing both directions at once. So I could forget about any quality mp3 stream. Now with AAC This could change. I played with all the different bitrates with no luck expect this one configuration that works ok. If you set your AAC stream at 28kbps 44khz Stereo It will give you a accepteble "Radio" like quality. Anything lower then that just sucks and aint even worth it. On the laptop side I had to increase the buffers in Winamp to 400kb.
anything else I tried would bogg down after a few mins. And streaming any lower bandwith was out of the question

Now How I got things setup is in my laptop running in the car I connect to the Bell network. Then fire up the stream in winamp (at these buffer levels takes about 1min to load)I have a usb fm transmitter on my laptop that retransmitts the sound from the laptop to the car radio. This works not bad I average about 70mins I have gotten upto 200mins on the road listenning to my stream beffore it kicks out and you have to reload (sometimes durring temp cell dead zones, network usage, that cause that etc)


So It is possible now and it works ok if your willing to reload it now and then, its no big deal I find. Its cool to be driving somewhere that my FM station cant be picked up and I hear it in my Car Nice and clear no matter where I am.


* I have not tested this but i assume you can do this both ways, you could use this as a temp remote studio link and stream back to your radio station from where your brandcasting from...could be live events remote etc.. *

[hackerdork]

stuff like this sounds cool, but cell providers don't like you using up their bandwidth. Even those that claim UNLIMITED internet access, really mean you can access it , but not use it for your own hosting/streaming...

[GMPCM]

1xRTT is just not all that great for shoutcast stream access, but 3G EV-DO is superb for that purpose, and when EV-DO Revision A hits the subs you will be amazed at some of the new capabilities that it will enable.

There are no bit usage limitations on 1xRTT at all, however, some providers do place an invisible red line on EV-DO downstream bit usage of around 10 Gb / Month (in North America) and its likely to be less overseas. Its pretty tough to use anything close to 10 Gb / month from shoutcast stream access alone.
Neither 1xRTT nor EV-DO will provide enough upstream bandwidth to permit broadcasting a usable stream to the internet. EV-DO Revision A will likely remove that barrier.

One thing you may want to check into is a hardware system specifically designed for in-vehicle use that will provide an always-on EV-DO broadband connection to the internet. One such device that we offer, called the VN1 Server (http://www.gmpcm.com/network.htm) , has all of the advantages of an onboard EV-DO connected PC and includes a WiFi access point that other devices in and around your vehicle can connect to for internet access.
The VN1's 802.11g 54 Mbps access point has an effective open air connection range of around 1000 ft. This means you can typically receive the signal that your vehicle out in the parking lot is broadcasting from within a mall or grocery store. I use a WiFi equiped Pocket PC with a set of stereo earbuds attached for that purpose.
When you are near a suitable public WiFi access point, the VN1 will automatically connect to the access point and serve its internet connection from your system, so you really dont need to worry about any potential EV-DO bit usage limitations even if your are a download addict like me. :)

I have the VN1 with a 7" Motorized In-Dash Touch Screen LCD and a dash mounted camera in my personal vehicle. I can make free VOIP "video" calls from within my vehicle anytime I am near a public WiFi access point. :)
Once EV-DO Revision A is offered in my area I won't need to find an open access point to place a video call from my car, as the upstream bandwidth will be more than enough to meet the considerable demands of a VOIP video call.
EV-DO Revision A offers peak theoretical data transfer speeds of 3.1 Mbps downstream and 1.8 Mbps upstream, with latency comparable to a cable modem.

[Mark Shannon]

I have explored this option. I know it's possible to do because I've seen "Sprint PCS" pop up when I lookup IP addresses. They are using PocketTunes on Palm OS. I thought they were in Airports using WiFi, but now I think they are on the road instead, and that's very cool. Looking into monitoring my station mobile online, The Palm device is way over my head pricewise, and the unlimited data plan is too high for this poor boy! I doubt that I'll exceed any 10GB uses by connecting to my 24KBPS stream.

Sprint does have a 30 Day return policy, and PocketTunes has a 15 day tryout. I've thought about using the policy to test it out, but that would be wrong to do. Unless the PERFORM act wrecks MP3 Audio Streaming, once I pay my car off, I'll try it out.

More info on the PERFORM act:
www.performact.com

Yours Truly,
MWS

[GMPCM]

The monthly fee for the data plan is something many find prohibitive, but if you can absorb that, you will be happy to know that you can get a Sprint EV-DO data card (http://www.gmpcm.com/network.htm#EV-DO) that will work in a laptop's cardbus slot for free. That would reduce the hardware costs to nothing if you already own a fairly nice laptop. :)

I am surprised that they do not try to justify the PERFORM act based on the fact that terrorists could potentially access internet radio streams and be entertained.:rolleyes: