Internet feed may be in doubt for Conference
unable to deliver. Anyone that connected to the company's new site,
Internet feed may be in doubt for Conference

After the new LDS Church-owned company MStar trumpeted throughout its Mormon sites on the Internet a new service providing an audio feed of last Saturday's General Relief Society Meeting, the service proved unable to deliver. Anyone that connected to the company's new site, http://www.generalconference.com/ was disappointed when the audio feed was absent.

In a message to subscribers of its LDS-Gems list, the company blamed its troubles on its previously unnamed partner, Real Networks, which, according to MStar, was unable to maintain a link to the satellite feed provided by the Church. After more than an hour of the program had passed, Real was able to provide the feed, but only after many would-be listeners had given up in frustration.

When contacted by Mormon News, Real Networks was unable to comment on last Saturday's failure, but was able to confirm that it is providing 100,000 audio streams to MStar this Saturday through its RBN business unit. Real says that this is a very large broadcast, compared to the average broadcast it hosts.

MStar has released few details about the failure, leaving its ability to provide the same feeds for General Conference this weekend in doubt. In addition, simple back-of-the-envelope estimates also put the adequacy of the company's touted 100,000 audio streams in doubt. The key question to the adequacy of the number of streams depends on the tendency in heavily populated LDS areas, such as Utah's Wasatch Front, to use the service in spite of the availability of Conference on local broadcast television and radio. If large numbers of Church members that have other access to Conference also use the Internet, the service could easily be overwhelmed, even with 100,000 streams.