Audio Streaming (not!) -- what is the pattern?

What are the problems with audio streaming not working?

For me on a Mac, and a friend on a PC, we continously have problems
with audio streaming not starting, suddenly dying, or taking minutes
to change from one station to another (sound -> silence -> sound)
We're 1000's of miles apart, different ISPs, etc.

* streaming works fine for me in iTunes
* I have tried playing around with the bandwidth setting in prefs
* happens in some Sims more than others, or I could be imagining that part

What are all of the things to check? Is this really widespread?

Bucky,
I'm on a mac. If you'll give me a location where music doesn't work for you, I'll go see.
Otherwise, its hard to tell where to start...your problem is too open ended.

audio streaming in SL never been that good, can loose stream quite easy, faster to get the url and play it from something else , SL isnt quite reliable for it