NOW! 12-13 - Telos

AXIA | NETWORKING | TECHNOLOGY ARTICLE
102
AoIP IN BROADCAST ENGINEERING
bandwidth, AoIP networking over VPLS may become an extremely
attractive alternative to today’s point-to-point compressed
audio contribution links. As the capacity of the networks
grows, a natural trend will be to allocate more bandwidth
to audio links, allowing the use of codecs with less aggressive
compression. As this bandwidth expansion cycle repeats, we
will eventually achieve the ultimate goal of sending linear audio
over WAN links.
Internet2 is a major initiative led by the research and education
community. The Internet2 consortium comprises over 200
US universities, as well as corporations, government agencies,
and national research and educational organizations from
over 50 countries. The consortium operates an evolving highperformance
network that currently spans the US. It provides
network capacity for educational, research and community
services, as well as actively engages the community in the development
of new technologies and Internet applications.
The capability of data transport at multi-gigabit rates over long
distances is opening doors for advanced networking applications
in arts and education, including live music performance
over networks, interactive sound production, teaching, and
many other areas.
A SIDEBAR: usually the discussion goes about how technical
limitations narrow the artistic quality. However, it appears that
the networking phenomenon that has become an important
part of our everyday life is provoking new creative ideas itself.
It allows, for example, a group of performers to collaboratively
play music on a networked instrument, or exploit network delay
or packet jitter as “sound art”. Also, special music is being
composed for networks, assuming a certain delay between the
participants of the ensemble, in which case the network delay
becomes an inseparable part of the musical composition. To
ind out more, simply search the Web for “networked music
performance”, or related keywords, and read on!
WHAT’S NEXT?
No one knows the future, but there are, really, three fundamental
things we would wish to receive from networking technologies
in the coming years:
» Complete transparency to the native resolution of the
source material
» Complete transparency to application functionality
» Zero latency (Ok, let’s be realistic – close to zero)
The good news is that, although it sometimes may be costly,
none of these wishes is fundamentally impossible to realize
even within the scope of technologies known today. It may be
that, one day, processors will be inexpensive and fast enough
to satisfy any fancy application – devices easily handling
message rates at the audio sampling frequency and higher.
Imagine the globe, wrapped in a lightning-fast ultra-broadband
protocol-transparent carrier network – no link congestion
ever, network nodes forward the trafic instantly, and the
packet overhead is no more an issue. Right now it’s a dream,
but certainly not an impossible one.
And after that? Well, the electromagnetic ield is slowish.
Travelling half the globe in an optical ibre takes about 100ms.
Can this be improved?
An old legend from the early years of the 21st century was
telling: “AoIP will never work.” …
Gints Linis
Research & Development Project Manager
Axia Audio