Internet radio
Internet radio (online radio or web radio) is a group of technologies for transferring stream audio data via Internet. The term Internet radio or web-radio can often refer to radio stations that broadcast their programs using the technology of streaming audio broadcasting in the Internet.
Technically the system of internet radio consists of three major elements: the station, which generates an audio stream (whether from a list of audio files or by means of direct digitalization of audio by an audio card, or by copying an audio stream already existing in the network) and directs it to the server (the station consumes minimum of internet traffic as it generates only one stream); the server, which receives the audio stream and directs its copies to all clients connected to the server (the server consumes the amount of traffic proportional to the number of listeners); and the client – basically the computer which receives the audio stream from the server and transforms it into an audio signal for the listener of the internet radio station. In some cases the client may be another repeater, which makes it possible to create cascade-type systems of radio broadcasting. The amount of traffic consumed by the client approximately equals the amount of traffic of the station. Together with audio data that's transmitted via internet radio, some text data are also transmitted in order to inform the listener about the station itself, the title of the song being played, advertising etc.