The original Web standards were not developed for transmitting sound or moving pictures. Anyone who has recorded a sound file onto their computer knows that it takes up a lot of digital space . Digitally encoding or capturing the varying nuances of sound contained in a minute of speech for radio involves a lot more information (around 10 megabytes in CD quality stereo) than the same in 180 words or so of encoded text (around 420 times less at 24 kilobytes). The analogy that is commonly used to help describe this problem of size is of the narrow pipe : the pipe-work of the domestic phone line was fine for relatively skinny text data, but squeezing much, much fatter audio data through such unsuitable plumbing would take a very long time and far too long for it to emerge at the other end of the system sounding anything like its live original.