Worldwide Web listeners tune in to LDS conference
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Web surfers tuning into the live audio feed of the Saturday morning session of LDS general conference must have felt like they were squeezing into a crowded Tabernacle in cyberspace.
Demand for the multilingual audio Internet feed at www.generalconference.com apparently overloaded the service's initial volume capacity leaving most online listeners with poor reception during the morning session's first hour. Some speedy adjustments to the service's bandwidth capacity configuration remedied the problem in time for the second hour.
Saturday's afternoon session came in clear to the tens of thousands of global conference Web listeners.
"We're not completely sure at this point" why the initial configuration was not sufficient to handle Saturday morning's demand, said David Kenison, a senior engineer for MStar.Net, which operates the conference's online audio service provider, LDSWorld.com. The local Internet company contracts with RealNetworks to host the audio netcast.
The technical difficulties prompted scores of complaints until the audio glitch was corrected, said Kenison.
LDSWorld.com experienced similar transmission problems during last Saturday's attempted online audio feed of the church's General Relief Society Meeting. Equipment trouble is being blamed, Kenison said.
While live audio links for past conference sessions have been available on a limited scale, Satur LDS Church members worldwide can listen in via the World Wide Web. Up to 100,000 connections were possible for surfers to hear the proceedings, provided in 13 languages other than English, including Vietnamese, Spanish, French, Mandarin, Cantonese, Tongan, Samoan, Navajo, Portuguese, Korean, Japanese, Laotian and German.
Once Saturday's techno-bugs were squashed, officials at MStar.Net — the distributor of LDSWorld.com — said they were pleased with the first-ever large scale audio transmission via the Internet.
"Right now we're in great shape," Kenison said.
Kenison said first-hour customer gripes were soon replaced by family's excited to hear church leaders offer live counsel, despite, in many cases, being miles away from Salt Lake City or a conference satellite broadcast.
Kenison added audio copies of the church meetings — including the first hour of Saturday morning's general conference session and the General Relief Society Meeting — are available at www.generalconference.com.
MStar.Net is owned by the Deseret Management Corporation, a holding company for businesses affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
