Can too many people on my website prevent visitors from accessing an MP3 file?

Avatar
ElanaP
  • Answered
Hi. I'm hosting a telesummit at my site. Some listeners are reporting problems with the mp3 they are listening to stopping before the end.

I'm wondering what would cause this, as it doesn't seem to be universal for all users. Could this have to do with traffic?
Replies 1
Avatar
0
Arn
Hello Elanap, Sorry to hear about the problems with the MP3 file. The short answer is "yes - possibly", because it will depend on the length of the file and the number of people accessing the file on your webserver. You can host audio files (such as your Mp3) file on the webserver, but if it's being hit by many people then there may be the possibility of the file load being interrupted by repeated access. I would highly recommend either a CDN (Content Delivery Network) (e.g. Amazond CloudFront) or someone like SoundCloud.com - a company that specializes in audio streaming. This way the accesses to your file are distributed by systems made to stream media and keeps the load off your web server. Since the web server is already functioning to keep the website on the internet, giving the job of streaming the media file from a different service would help to insure that the file plays the way you want it to play. I hope that helps to provide you the solution that you need and explains the possibility of the service issue that you're seeing. Please let us know if you require any further assistance. Regards, Arnel C.