Latency
The delay between when the word is spoken at the event and when the text appears in front of the audience is latency.
Latency is particularly important to call-in shows.
Earize™ endeavors to deliver text within two to five seconds. However there are a number of factors that can substantially increase latency, and they can vary from audience member to audience member:
- The general state of the Internet as a whole. For example, Internet Traffic Report showed 5% of the North American Internet packets getting lost and a response time close to 85ms at the moment this was written.
- The route messages take between the Earize server and each individual audience member. At the moment this was written, for example, a connection from Washington DC took 15 hops and 458ms (nearly a half second) while a connection from Los Angeles took 14 hops and 421ms.
- The audience member's local Internet Service Provider (ISP). Some ISPs pass packets of data through to the communications backbone faster than others.
- The audience member's Internet connection can vary widely. Dial-up lines will be slow. Nearly all cable or DSL providers reserve the right to throttle bandwidth during peak load periods or when it suits their fancy. Even corporate users with private networking connected to private routers with dedicated communications can experience large delays during peak usage.
- The audience member's local hardware and viewing preferences also play a role in the overall latency. For example, setting a modest reading rate for a fast paced event will cause the text to increasingly lag the event.