Impact Radio is now broadcast on the web using Windows Media Technologies over a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) stream delivery network. This streaming solution is powered by the Antfarm.

If you're ready to listen live, click here!

If Windows Media Player is not yet installed on your computer, or you would like to download the latest version (recommended), click on the relevant link as based on your computer platform below:

Download for: Vers. 9 for Windows XPVers. 7.1 for Win 98Vers. 6.4 for Win95 and Win NT4 (requires VCM codec updates)

Download for: Vers. 7.1 for Mac OS 8.1 to 9.x Vers. 9 for Mac OS X

Getting connected

Once you have the correct version of Windows Media Player installed on your system, simply click on: LAUNCH IMPACT RADIO

The Impact Radio player will open, after which there will be delay while you connect to the peer-to-peer network; once you are connected, you will get a buffering message, when it reaches 100% buffering, you should receive Impact Radio loud and clear.

The first time you connect to the Impact Radio Player, a peer-to-peer (P2P) client control will automatically be downloaded and installed - there will be a delay while this takes place, dependant on the speed of your Internet connection. Please be patient while the control downloads... Depending on your browser security settings, you may be prompted to accept the download and installation of the control from Rawflow Technologies, which you will need to accept. After the control has been successfully installed, a connection attempt to the peer-to-peer network shall be established; once you are connected and the player buffering completes, you should receive Impact Radio loud and clear.

If the audio reception seems slow or broken, please set the buffer in Windows Media Player to 30 seconds or more. This means the player will preload more of the audio before starting the stream, in order to compensate for occassional bandwidth difficulties, such as when downloading big files or surfing graphic intensive sites whilst trying to listen.

What seems to be the problem?

Failed connection:
Your connection to the internet is not stable or faulty or the network delivery source is too busy or down (this very rarely happens!) Check your connection - wait a little, then please try again.

Firewalls & Streaming:
If you are connecting from an office network, please ask your IT network administrators if they allow and do not block Internet streaming - by default, the Impact Radio streams are served using the MMS streaming protocol, an efficient Internet streaming protocol used for serving many streams on the WWW (on TCP port 1755)

Stream keeps breaking up and dropping:
Congestion in the Internet... or congestion on your line? The latter is usually the case - try to reconnect with a faster Internet connection; if using an analogue modem, use less bandwidth by shutting down existing browsing or downloading sessions.

Repeated failed connections:
The streams may be having difficulty reaching your player due to an unsupported or blocked stream protocol. If you are running on a network that uses a firewall, check that streaming on port 1755 is not blocked; you may need to consult your IT department support staff concerning this...

P2P client control does not install:
If the Rawflow P2P control does not install successfully, you may need to configure the browser security settings to allow this - click here for a brief tutorial of how to allow the installation of ActiveX controls for Internet Explorer.

Dropped stream connection:
If the audio reception buffers for a while and then stops after a period of stream playback, an automatic re-connection attempt will be made to the closest available streaming peer - this may time out if no peer is found within a reasonable period of time. If this happens, press the play button on the Impact Radio Player or refresh the Impact Radio Player window by pushing F5 on your keyboard - this will force a re-connection to the peer-to-peer network and connect you to the stream again.

I'm still having problems....what now?
Contact Internet Radio Support at Impact Radio. Please provide a detailed description of your problem and any error codes that are displayed. In addition, to assist with the resolution of your problem, please provide us with the following additional details (if known):
OS - Win 98, 2000, XP (SP1/2), MAC, Linux Browser - IE, Firefox, Netscape, Safari Media Player version - 6/7/8/9/10 Internet connection - modem, ISDN, ADSL, corporate access IP Address (if known)

Listening from behind a firewall or proxy

Firewalls and PC protection software can sometimes block your PC from receiving Internet streams. You may need to open additional ports in your firewall to enjoy streamed content. Often your default media player setting is to use your browser proxy - which may be preventing the stream from coming through. The quickest way to check is to run Windows Media Player and using the menu bar, access Tools....Options.....Network and set HTTP to use no proxy (none). A tutorial that briefly describes how to configure most firewalls to work with Windows Media streaming is available from Microsoft's Windows Media site.

Click here for the Firewall and ports TUTORIAL

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What is P2P streaming?
Peer-to-peer streaming is an exciting new form of Internet stream distribution. It works by distributing a traditional stream broadcast in such a way that any spare and unused upload capacity of a client is used to share the broadcast with other clients in the audience. By using P2P, all streams of the Impact Radio broadcast are intelligently distributed over the entire network of clients making up the broadcast audience. As the audience grows so do the network resources available to distribute the broadcast without increasing bandwidth costs. This makes it possible to reach more users where Internet broadcasting is prohibitively expensive, such as in South Africa (thanks to the greedy and monopolistic practices of a certain entrenched incumbent operator). Simply put: this means that a potentially unlimited amount of users can listen to Impact Radio!

What if I am behind a firewall?
Under certain circumstances, the P2P streaming employed for Impact Radio may continue to serve a broadcast to users behind firewalls that block outgoing stream connections. Under such circumstances firewalled users receive, rather than serve stream connections to peers.

What about security?
There is no way for a virus or any other harmful file to affect computers as a result of the participation in this broadcast. No writing to file of the received stream broadcast occurs and therefore, security concerns may be dispelled. The received streams are not cached to a client's hard drive and no files are ever exchanged by client and server. For more information concerning security of Windows Media Internet broadcasts, click here

What is the bandwidth usage?
The amount of a client's bandwidth that contributes to the shared broadcast depends on many factors, including the bandwidth capacity of the client's Internet connection and the demographics of other audience members. Bandwidth usage may vary as the P2P system adapts used bandwidth as based on availability of the network link. In other words, when uploading a large file, any clients connected to a specific peer shall be instantly redirected to other peers where there is sufficient bandwidth available to serve the required streams. Under circumstances where no peers are discovered in time, the client shall establish a direct connection to the stream source. As the streams are encoded at a fixed bitrate of 13kbps, no more bandwidth is required to receive the stream broadcast.

What are the P2P client requirements?
The P2P client control is delivered to the user by one of several delivery methods. For users of Internet Explorer, the primary delivery method is via the installation of an ActiveX control. For users of other browsers, the P2P client can be delivered as a Netscape style plug-in, or using the Java Web Start technology. Supported browsers include the following:
Internet Explorer v4 and up Mozilla-based - Netscape v6 and up, Firefox (still under development) Other - Safari, Camino (for MAC OSX) (still under development)

Supported platforms include the following:
Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP or 2003
Linux 2.2 or above for ix86
MAC OS X

What do I need to do to become a primary peer?
Peering in the P2P network is based on three stream delivery paradigms: peer serving, peer receiving and peer serving & delivering streams. A primary peer will serve many streams, to the extent of it's available and spare Internet bandwidth. This is adjusted dynamically so bandwidth availability is maintained for the peer. To become a primary stream peer, you require more than 56kbps of available Internet capacity - if you are behind a firewall, you will need to open the following ports:
9026 for TCP
9027 for TCP