[webcast-l] Important news about the CMA's Internet Media Service

[Bill Best]

Hi

Here at the Community Media Association we have some important news
about the Internet Media Service (IMS) and some exciting new upgrades.

The IMS was started in 2001 and since then has helped more than 500
community media projects to broadcast audio and video to the world.
Literally hundreds of community radio projects have used the service:
from RSL's, to the Access Radio pilot projects, to fully-fledged
community radio stations, and dedicated internet radio stations.  Also a
 significant number of community video projects have been supported over
this time.

The service has been free for CMA members to use since it was started
but we have always advised users that we would have to make the service
self-sustaining in the long term.  The great news is that over the years
we have built up a large community of internet broadcasters. By
collectively sharing the costs of the IMS we can now launch a new and
sustainable webcasting service that compares with some of the most
competitive commercial streaming services in the UK.

Over the next few weeks and months we will release more details of the
new Internet Media Service which will be officially relaunched from 2nd
July 2007.  From this date all users of the IMS will be asked to pay a
small charge in order to contribute to the sustainability of the
service.  We have undertaken some market research and the CMA's
webcasting service will be competitively positioned with regard to the
commercial operators.

By using the CMA's streaming media service our webcasters will know that
they have the support of a dedicated technical team with many years
experience of streaming media provision for the community broadcasting
sector.  Our advice and support package aims to be second to none with
the option of Remote Assistance if anybody gets really stuck and our
online community of webcasters provides peer-to-peer advice and support
via our mailing lists.

The CMA will also be using the opportunity to upgrade our commitment to
service provision and we will have doubled our network capacity to
handle twice as much streaming media data.  The CMA uses one of the most
reliable and efficient internet service providers in the UK for
streaming media bandwidth and our webcasting servers are located in
Telehouse in the London Docklands on the UK's internet backbone.  The
quality of our streaming media server architecture will therefore be
even better and more resilient.

We will also be letting you know about our new range of services
including the podcasting service based on open source software that
makes podcasting so easy.  Our consultancy services will also be
accessible on a commercial basis by non-members of the CMA however our
ICT expertise will be available to CMA members at special discounted rates.

So make a note in your diary or calendar for Monday 2nd July when the
Internet Media Service is relaunched with a new pricing structure and a
whole range of new facilities.  You do not have to do anything for the
now - we will be back in touch again soon.

Best regards

Bill
-- 
Community Media Association
http://www.commedia.org.uk/