The Satellite Internet Rural Access (SIRA)
STREAMS project is exploring ways rural communities can be connected to the wider world using Internet Video over rural links. We are looking at the effect on rural communities access to Large Format Video has and the technological requirements to make the it practical.
Broadband Internet is changing the economy and society in ways that were unthought-of a decade ago. IT has become a near necessity for a substantial proportion of the population. Goods and services are increasingly delivered via broadband, including everything from shopping, ecommerce, music TV and access to all manner of information. Despite widespread access to broadband across the UK, many do not have access–communities and individuals, mainly in rural areas, have had long-standing difficulty acquiring broadband connectivity. One area that this affects is the access to Large Format Video, whether it be a stream generated in a rural area or a stream being consumed.
The SIRA STREAMS project is exploring how Large Format Video can be used over bandwidth limited links. We are also looking at the mechanisms in the underlying protocol layers and how they can be best used to transport video. We want to see how recent developments in internet standards effect the performance of TCP video. Social scientists are working alongside the Engineering team on the project, to understand the impact of streaming rural events to remote audiences. We are particularly interested in how streaming these events might positively impact on rural creative practitioners' networks and connectivity to wider audiences and client bases.
The research described here is supported by the award made by the RCUK Digital Economy programme to the dot.rural Digital Economy Hub; award reference: EP/G066051/1.