Reliability, flexibility and ease of use are the key requirements when covering the news and live events, especially when the location could be anywhere. Connectivity is one of the biggest concerns in the field when the pressure is on to capture a key event – if you cannot establish a reliable transmission path to send your video back to the broadcast studio, there is no story.

Connectivity technologies such as bonded cellular, microwave and satellite systems all have their relative merits and challenges, and broadcasters have a great deal of experience in choosing the solution that most suits their needs. But there are tradeoffs between transmittable locations, setup time, and cost, as well as factors such as weather conditions and terrain to consider.

Cellular connectivity is fast to deploy and cost effective, but reliant on coverage provided by mobile network providers. Metropolitan areas typically provide the best coverage, but the cellular networks can get congested as more production crews vie for the same bandwidth. The general public also competes for the same bandwidth, so if at a location where crowds start sending photos or streaming video with their smartphones, the networks can become overloaded. Signal strength can also be challenging when a story is in more remote or rural areas and the available bandwidth only allows low bitrate streams, or no stream at all.

Satellite technology, historically the traditional choice for broadcasters on location, is very consistent and often relied upon for critical live coverage of major events, but comes with increased costs, complexity, and administration time. In general, satellite time needs to be booked in advance and in defined time slots. At a big news story, just getting a slot when you want it can be a challenge. Editors of the six o’clock news are rarely impressed when the only slot you can get is at seven.

Meanwhile, microwave technology is also reliable, but a story can occur beyond its range, or in a challenging location where line of sight is obstructed. Similar to satellite, inclement weather may impact the ability to cover a story.

No single delivery technology is perfect and they all have their relative strengths and weaknesses. A far better solution would be to combine the best attributes of these technologies to benefit from their respective strengths and give broadcasters better choice, depending on the situation.

What if you could choose when to use cellular, when to use satellite or a combination of both? Or even better, to have a system which chooses for you – intelligently optimizing connectivity to transport live video economically without compromising on quality or reliability.

Making inroads in this ‘blended connectivity realm’, since IBC last year, is Dejero’s CellSat technology. To simplify the process and deliver greater choice from a production vehicle in the field, Dejero partnered with Intelsat to give broadcasters a unique connectivity solution that automatically blends cellular and on-demand Ku-band IP satellite. The Ku-band connection is all IP, so it can readily be added to a blended network delivery system like Dejero’s.

Broadcasters can choose to use cellular if there is sufficient bandwidth and there’s no concern that the bandwidth will degrade during the live broadcast, or use a combination of cellular and satellite for higher reliability.

The Dejero solution uses software to communicate with the antenna auto-acquire system to simplify the satellite connection process. Built-in intelligence constantly analyses the characteristics of up to six cellular connections, as well as the Intelsat Ku-band IP connection, in real time, dynamically managing the transmission path for fluctuating bandwidth and latency to ensure reliable delivery.

The Dejero system uses patented and proprietary network blending technology to send the packets over the available connections, optimizing the routing to achieve a reliable, low latency stream. A receiver located at the broadcast facility then recombines the packets, ready for playout.

The benefit is not just the added reliability, but also the transmission path flexibility and operational simplicity. Diverse connectivity is now available from one provider, simplifying procurement and billing, and also providing a single point of contact for support.

Cloud management allows operators to set up and remotely control transmitters and receivers, monitor and route incoming video feeds, and view performance data. Broadcasters can also generate usage and billing reports to help manage operational costs from their web browser.

This intelligent network blending approach removes complexity so field crews can focus on capturing great content. Meanwhile, it further empowers broadcasters to use the best combination of connectivity to meet their technical and budgetary requirements.
The unique ability to have the choice between cellular and a blended cellular and satellite transmission path, to take advantage of the convenience and cost savings of cellular networks and the robustness of satellite networks, assures that broadcasters have the bandwidth to cover an event with the broadcast quality and reliability they need.