So there you are at your screaming multimedia home computer, with a nice 28.8 kbaud modem connecting you via copper telephone cables to this magical thing called The Internet. You click on a soundfile link, sit back...sit back a little further...go make some coffee...you get the idea. One megabyte (about 8 million bits) of raw data takes just under 5 minutes at 28,800 bits per second. Then add the packet overhead, network traffic, and periodic telco line-noise pulldowns, and you're lucky to get that megabyte across in 10 minutes. One minute of CD-quality audio is about 10 MB, or an hour and 40 minutes under nearly ideal conditions. That's not a very good ratio for music on demand. A 2-bearer ISDN connection will cut the time down to 25-30 percent of that, which still means that a 3.5-minute pop song will take nearly an hour and a half.If you're fortunate enough to do your surfing on a T1, then this is less of a concern. And as cable companies start providing network hookups, downloading an entire album won't be a big deal - the compact disc could become a dinosaur in five to ten years. First, however, the industry and consumers will have to decide how much a "virtual CD" should cost, and how to protect the rights of the artists against copyright infringement and piracy. Got any ideas?
