Internet Radio Audio Streams

[emacee]

Hi! I know some technically sophisticated people hang here. I appreciate your responses on a sort of basic question.

I listen to Internet Radio (streaming audio) on my Nokia N85. I use Nokia's Internet Radio Player, Mundu Radio and Core Player. I also did a trial of LCG Jukebox. My carrier is ATT.

Problem is Internet Radio stations keep dropping out. Often the player is buffering the stream (for what seems like an usually long time). Sometimes the stream disconnects. Once in a while, the player freezes up or shuts down. These are mostly the same URLs I listen to on my desktop and in my experience they are reliable streams.

I used to experience problems like this when I first started listening to Internet Radio in the mid-90s but not lately.

I have a strong (all bars showing) 3G connection.

What's the problem? The software (players)? Core Player seems a little more resistant to drop outs than Mundu. Limitations of the phone? Not just Nokia or Symbian. Before I bought the N85 I tried the iPhone and Samsung Omnia and they seems to have similar drop problems. The carrier? iPhone is also AT&T but the Samsung was Verizon. A bandwidth issue? Higher speed streams seem to drop out more but the problem also occurs on slower dial-up streams.

Yes, the problem seldom occurs with a WiFi Internet connection (as opposed to a 3G cellular connection).

It does not seem to be related to movement (from one cell tower to the next): It happens when I stay close to home.

I stumped. Any thoughts? Anything I can do to improve stream reliability?

Thanks.

[gwalborn]

Are you using Bluetooth? I have noticed more dropouts on Internet radio when using a stereo bluetooth headphone.

[emacee]

Not using Bluetooth. I tried Bluetooth with the N85 but apparently the N85 does not support stereo or streaming Bluetooth (Bluetooth even dropped out when I was playing music files stored on the phone). I'm betting stream drop out with a wired headset.