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  • Basic data transfer question

    From [email protected]@21:1/5 to All on Sat May 16 01:12:09 2020
    Ok, so if I have a WiFi router in my house and there are 2 people in the house BOTH watching the same TV program broadcasted from say, China, individually (say one on a computer, one on a phone), surely there is only ONE data stream coming from China to
    the Fiber router? Which then gets split into 2, one for each person? Please don't tell me there are TWO separate connections from the transmitting server for each stream?

    Thanks.

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  • From Barry Margolin@21:1/5 to [email protected] on Sat May 16 21:42:22 2020
    In article <[email protected]>,
    [email protected] wrote:

    Ok, so if I have a WiFi router in my house and there are 2 people in the house BOTH watching the same TV program broadcasted from say, China, individually (say one on a computer, one on a phone), surely there is only ONE data stream coming from China to the Fiber router? Which then gets split into 2, one for each person? Please don't tell me there are TWO separate connections from the transmitting server for each stream?

    Sorry to disappoint you.

    While there are multicast protocols that will send a single stream that multiple clients can subscribe to, I don't think they're in common use
    by streaming services.

    It's pretty rare that multiple clients are watching the same program at
    exactly the same time, so that they can share a single stream. Streaming
    is an "on demand" service, not like broadcast where everyone has to
    watch the program when the network chooses to send it.

    --
    Barry Margolin
    Arlington, MA

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    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)