Hello
In either case, you can either license the software yourself or pay someone else a fee to use their servers. Most people who use Shoutcast are paying someone a monthly fee for the use of their server and bandwidth etc.
You can run the streaming software on your own server, and buying a licence for Broadwave is one way of doing it. (Another way is to run a Shoutcast server yourself).
Advantages of using broadwave
- it's much easier to set up compared to Shoutcast
- it can deliver live streams (one per soundcard on your PC, I think)
- it can deliver pre-recorded mp3s
- you have full control
Disadvantages
- you may run out of bandwidth / data usage from your ISP if you have many concurrent listeners (it's ok for a few)
- you have to keep the server running
Personally, I manage the IT for a small radio station. We use Shoutcast for the main delivery of the public internet stream as we don't have the bandwidth to support many concurrent listeners, but we also use Broadwave to allow the station manager & programme controller to listen directly for management purposes.