Internet Radio

Internet radio is awesome. I listen to it all day at work, despite the fact that we aren't supposed to, but I figure in a school of 1500, my little computer using internet radio isn't going to be a big deal.

When you select an internet radio station, you have a lot of options, and with each option is a the speed of the station, eg. 28K, 56K, 128K, 256K, etc... The speed indicates how much bandwidth you will be using.

For example, you are listening to a 128K station for 8 hours a day at work.
(b = bit, B = byte)
there are 8 b in a B
there are 1024 B in a KB
there are 1024 KB in a MB

so ...
Size (in megabytes) = length (in seconds) · bit rate (in kbit/s) / 8,388.608 (since 1 megabyte = 8 * 1,048,576 bits = 8,388.608 kilobits)

3600 * 128 / 8388.608 = 55MB per hour. Multiply that by 8 and you are only using 400MB of bandwidth per day. In our world of super high speed internet, that's nothing. I don't care what those other IT guys say. They are usually those uptight asshole types anyway.

Okay, this post got a whole lot geekier than I had originally intended. Originally I just wanted to laugh about convincing a teacher that the louder her internet radio was, the more bandwidth she used. :) But I guess I got a little ahead of myself. Ah well. It was funny.