BMUG Revelations/BMUG Revelations.toast/Telecom/InterNet/Internet Radio

Text File | 1992-12-10 | 13.4 KB | 288 lines | [TEXT/SNTE]

                       Internet Talk Radio
                  Carl Malamud ([e-mail])

The following article is reprinted with permission from ConneXions.
ConneXions is published by Interop Company.  More information on
ConneXions can be obtained from the address [e-mail].

 Over the past few years, two trends have come together to
present an opportunity for a new type of journalism.  On the one
hand, the trade press has focused on marketing and product
reviews, leaving an ever-larger gap for a general-interest,
technically-oriented publication focused on the Internet.  At the
same time, the Internet has made great progress in supporting
multimedia communication, through standards such as IP
multicasting and MIME messaging.

 Internet Talk Radio attempts to fuse these two trends and
form a new type of publication: a news and information service
about the Internet, distributed on the Internet.  Internet Talk
Radio is modeled on National Public Radio and has a goal of
providing in-depth technical information to the Internet
community.  The service is made initially possible with support
from Sun Microsystems and O'Reilly & Associates.  Our goal is to
provide a self-sufficient, financially viable public news service
for the Internet community.

Head: Flame of the Internet

 The product of Internet Talk Radio is an audio file,
professionally produced and freely available on computer
networks.  To produce these files, we start with the raw data of
any journalistic endeavor: speeches, conference presentations,
interviews, and essays.

 This raw information is taped using professional-quality
microphones, mixers, and DAT recorders.  The information is then
brought back to our studios, and edited and mixed with music,
voice overs, and the other elements of a radio program. The "look
and feel" we strive for is akin to "All Things Considered" or
other programs that appeal to the general interest of the
intelligent listener.

 Our goal is hit the topics that don't make it into the trade
press.  Instead of SNMP-compliant product announcements, we want
to present descriptions of SNMP.  Instead of articles on GOSIP,
we want to describe the latest Internet Drafts and place them in
perspective.  Instead of executive promotions, we want to give
summaries of mailing list activity and network stability.
Instead of COMDEX, we want to cover the IETF.

Head: Town Crier to the Global Village

 The result of Internet Talk Radio's journalistic activities
is a series of audio files.  The native format we start with is
the Sun Microsystems .au format, closely related to the NeXT .snd
format.  This format consists of the CCITT Pulse Code Modulation
(PCM) standard of 8 bits per sample and a sampling rate of 8000
samples per second, using the u-law [ed. use greek letter mu]
encoding (a logarithmic encoding of 8 bit data equivalent to a 14
bit linear encoding).  A half-hour program would thus consist of
64,000 bits per second or 15 Mbytes total.

 Programs are initially spool on UUNET, the central machines
of the Alternet network.  Files are then moved over to various
regional networks for further distribution.  For example, EUnet,
a commercial network provider for Europe with service in 24
countries, will act as the central spooling area for the European
region.  The Internet Initiative Japan (IIJ) company will provide
the same service for Japanese networks.

 The goal of coordinated distribution is to reduce the load
on key links of the network.  Transferring a 15 Mbyte file over a
64 kbps link does not make sense during peak times.  On the other
hand, a leased line has the attribute that a bit unused is a bit
forever gone.  Transferring large files at low priority in non-
peak times has little or no incremental cost.

 Files thus move from the UUNET central spool area, to
regional spools, to national and local networks.  We anticipate
most of this transfer to be done using the FTP protocols, but
some networks are discussing the use of NNTP news groups and
MIME-based distribution lists.

 It is important to note that Internet Talk Radio is the
source of programming and does not control the distribution.
These files are publicly available, subject only to the simple
license restrictions of no derivative work and no commercial
resale.

 Distribution is controlled, as with all other data, by the
individual networks that make up the Internet.  We intend to work
closely with networks all over the world to ensure that there is
some coordination of distribution activity, but ultimate control
over this data is in the hands of those people who finance,
manage, and use networks.

 We don't believe indiscriminate use of anonymous FTP is the
proper method for distributing large archives.  Previous
experience with ITU standards, with RFC repositories, and with
large software archives such as the X Windows System indicates
that setting up a top-level distribution hierarchy goes a long
way towards alleviating network load.

 Even with a top-level hierarchy, however, there will always
be anonymous FTP sites and there will always be people that go to
the wrong FTP server.  This behavior is largely mitigated by
setting up enough "local" servers and publicizing their
existence.  Like any large distributor of data, we are mindful of
the load on the transcontinental and regional infrastructures and
will take aggressive steps to help minimize that load.

Head: Asynchronous Times, Asynchronous Radio

 Once files have made their way to a local or regional
network, they are moved to the desktop and played.  Once again
the individual users of the network decide how to present data.
We hope to see a wide variety of different ways of having our
files played and only list a few of the more obvious methods.

 The simplest method to play a .au file on a Sparcstation is
to type "play filename."  If the file is placed on a Network File
System (NFS) file system on a central server, the user simply
mounts the file system and plays the file.  Alternatively, the
user copies the file to a local disk and plays it.

 More adventuresome playing of files uses multicasting.  A
simple multicast program called "radio" for a local Ethernet is
available from CWI, the mathematics institute of the Netherlands.
A more sophisticated approach, IP multicasting, allows a program
to reach far beyond the confines of the Ethernet.

 IP multicasting might be used on a local basis, or can have
a global reach.  There is a consortium of regional networks that
have formed the Multicast Backbone (MBONE), used for audio and
video programming of key conferences such as the Internet
Engineering Task Force.

 Internet Talk Radio does not assume use of the MBONE for
playing files.  Needless to say, the operators of the MBONE are
free to play Internet Talk Radio files (and we would be delighted
if this happens), but it is up to the local network affiliates to
determine how and when they distribute this audio data.

 In many cases, people will want to play files on a wide
variety of different platforms.  The Sound Exchange (SOX) program
is a publicly-available utility that easily transforms a file
from one format to another.  Using this utility, the Macintosh,
Silicon Graphics, DECstation, PC, and many other platforms can
play Internet Talk Radio files.

Head: Geek of the Week

 In the spirit of dignified, conservative programming, the
first production from Internet Talk Radio is dubbed Geek of the
Week.  Geek of the Week features technical interviews with key
personalities on the Internet.  Some of the people who have
agreed to appear on Geek of the Week include Daniel Karrenberg of
the RIPE NCC, Dr. Marshall T. Rose of Dover Beach Consulting,
Milo Medin of the NASA Science Internet, and Daniel Lynch of
Interop Company.

 Geek of the Week focuses on technical issues facing the
Internet.  This initial program is sponsored by Sun Microsystems
and O'Reilly & Associates.  Their support makes it possible for
Geek of the Week to be produced professionally and then to be
distributed at no charge.

 One of the issues that Internet Talk Radio faces are the
vestiges of Appropriate Use Policies (AUPs) that linger from the
original ARPANET days.  While Sun Microsystems and O'Reilly &
Associates view Internet Talk Radio in terms of an investigation
of on-line publishing, of multicasting, and other engineering
issues, we feel it important that our sponsors are given due
credit in the programs.

 At first glance, this smacks of the crass and commercial.
Indeed, it smacks of advertising.  Jumping to that conclusion,
however would be a simplistic mistake.  The Appropriate Use
Policies were formulated to guarantee that networks are used for
the purposes envisioned by the funding agents.  In the case of an
AUP-constrained networks such as the NSFNET, this means that use
of the network must benefit U.S. science and engineering.

 We feel that an in-depth interview with Internet architects
clearly falls within the purview of all AUP policies.  However,
we understand that certain networks may not accept certain types
of programming.  For this reason, our central spool areas are
carefully picked so they are AUP-free.  This way, if a network
feels the programming is inappropriate, they can simply inform
their users not to obtain or play the files.

 It should be noted that one advantage of supporting the
professional dissemination of news and information up-front is
that the user is not directly charged.  Somebody has to pay for
information to be produced, and the sponsorship model means that
copy protection, accounting, security, and all the other
complications of a charging model are avoided and that high-
quality news and information becomes increasingly available on
the Internet.

Head: The Medium is the Message

 While Geek of the Week is our flagship program, we intend to
intersperse mini-features throughout.  The Incidental Tourist,
for example, will feature restaurant reviews and other travel
information for sites throughout the world.  The Internet Hall of
Flame will highlight non-linear behavior on mailing lists, and we
will have periodic book reviews by Dan Dorenberg, one of the
founders of Computer Literacy Books.

 The logical extension to Geek of the Week is to begin
coverage of industry functions.  To date, we have received
permission to tape for later rebroadcast sessions and
presentations at the European RIPE meetings, the IETF, and at the
INTEROP Conferences.  We are negotiating with other industry
forums to try and establish permission to cover additional
conferences.

 Our hope is to begin providing news summaries of these key
conferences.  If you can't make it to the IETF, for example,
Internet Talk Radio would like to provide a half-hour news
summary describing what happened on each day.

 The next logical step is to begin producing analysis of key
technical topics.  Here, we look at in-depth (e.g., 15 minute)
summaries of technical topics such as MIME, proposals for the
next IP, SNMP v. 2, or the architecture of the Global Internet
Exchange (GIX).  We would also furnish analysis of political
topics, such as the POISED effort to reorganize the Internet
standards process, or the background of the IPv7 debate.

 Eventually, our hope is to combine all these reports
together and form a daily news broadcast to the Internet.  When
you walk in and start reading your mail, you simply click on the
"radio" icon and listen to Geek of the Week while deleting
messages from the more hyperactive mailing lists.

Head: Tomorrow is the Future

 The "radio" metaphor was carefully chosen.  We wanted an
alternative to plain ASCII files, yet did not feel that the
Internet infrastructure was ready for regular video feeds.
Production of video or true multimedia required an order-of-
magnitude higher investment in production facilities.  After all,
we know bad TV since we see so much of it.

 Eventually, Internet Talk Radio wants to go beyond the
confines of the simple radio metaphor.  Already, we describe the
service as asynchronous radio, recognizing that our listeners can
start, stop, rewind, or otherwise control the operation of the
radio station.

 As a multicasting infrastructure gets deployed throughout
the Internet, we see the opportunity to expand the radio metaphor
and begin the creation of a truly new news medium.  Multicast
groups and videoconferencing tools allow the creation of an
Internet Town Hall, a moderated forum with a very wide reach or
games shows like Name That Acronym where everybody gets to play.

 Because we are on the Internet, we can add a wide variety of
different programming techniques.  While listening to a series of
interviews about MIME messaging, for example, you might also
scroll through a series of Gopher menus that hold more
information about the MIME standards, or search a WAIS database
for a biography of the speakers.

 We hope that Internet Talk Radio will be the first of many
such information services on the Internet, supplementing the
random anarchy of news and mailing lists with professionally
produced news and information.  Indeed, we hope that Internet
Talk Radio forms the first of many "desktop broadcasting"
efforts.

 Internet Talk Radio debuts at the Columbus IETF at the end
of March.  Stay tuned for more information.

Head: For More Information

 Guido van Rossum, FAQ: Audio File Formats,
ftp.cwi.nl:/pub/AudioFormats2.10.  An excellent introduction to
audio formats, encoding, and other information about sound files
on different platforms.  This same site also has copies of the
SoundExchange (SOX) program for translating files into different
audio formats, and the Radio program for playing a sound file on
an Ethernet.