26 Feb 2005

Broad-banned

Posted by Just a little unwell in General | 11:25am


Happiness is short-lived, they say. Never realized it could be so true.

So here I was, having successfully negotiated a 'broadband' package out of my ISP for a lesser monthly subscription. I busily researched on what all I could do with my additional capability.

First and the easiest was to tune into obscure radio stations on the Net, which streamed their sonic chunks at 128kbps or more. Sat and patiently bookmarked them - 'Delicious agony', 'Aural moon', 'Chronix Aggression', 'Death FM' (expands to Death Fucking Metal), 'Radio Teen Taal' - a sample listing to give an idea. Happily spent a week listening to them almost 24/7. I downloaded plugins which will put my comp to sleep once i've slept (and streaming 128kbps until then), and wake me up with the radio stn of my choice at the destined time. If you are reminded of the word 'abuse', I wouldn't blame you.

I wasnt satisfied with this. I wanted to setup my own radio station and stream my mp3 playlist to others over the Net. After hours and days of further research, I figure out a way to do that. More plugins / DSPs (Oddcast/Shoutcast), streaming server software (IceCast/Shoutcast) thrown in to make it merrier. My legacy system complained and I was in no mood to pay attention. Thankfully, my connection would not play ball, and my ISP had ensured that I dont entertain such fantasies by blocking all TCP connections. (Let's just say that a 'TCP connection' is as important for hosting a service, as a bridegroom is for a wedding)

So I was sulking and posting my rants on web forums (there are other fanatics too, pls believe me). These forums were real eye-openers. Folks talked about the 1 GB download limit (even i'm aware of it, so what?) and how they exceeded it in one night of being online. Exceeded it in one night? But pray, how?

This got me to introspect on my own usage and made me realize how my stupid streams @128kbps were consuming almost an MB /minute. I was entitled for only 1000 such minutes / month, while I was playing them almost all my waking hours. Downloads in excess would cost me Rs.1.50 / MB (or per minute, as I was using it). Once this realization set in, I respectfully turned off the streams and switched on my CD player instead.  <brag>As someone having one of the best musical collections in Hyderabad,</brag> I do not need streams from obscure sources over the Net, to satiate me. Needless to mention, I shelved all ambitions of becoming an online DJ.

As they say, with great speeds come great responsibility. (Excuse me, Spiderman).



Current Mood: Feeling Better
Current Music: Not Death FM
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