Making the Jump to Unbreakable Live Broadcast

Challenge

The tension rises as the second round of ski jumping at the Nordic World Ski Championships enters its final phase. Only one jumper remains before the champion is crowned. The crowd holds their breath as the trainer gives the start signal. The last ski jumper takes off – all of a sudden the connection to the live broadcast is interrupted. Thousands of fans are left hanging. Anger and frustration at the broadcaster begins to grow.

MDR often provides live broadcasts at outdoor sporting venues, political events, concerts and so on. During which, interruptions like the example above are unacceptable. While stutters can be annoying, interruptions for just a few seconds can be a disaster. These can then result in serious damage to viewer satisfaction and MDR’s reputation. This is even more important when the station is the event’s exclusive broadcaster.

In the first stages of planning, MDR decided to look for a router solution capable of failover to improve reliability and security. In addition, this solution must be flexible enough to support outdoor broadcast deployments and user needs. It must also be compatible with alternative forms of connectivity in the event that wired connection is not available. “Especially in the current business there is the problem of the short-term provision of Internet connections,” explains Uwe Schumann, employee of the Transmission Systems and Networks Department at MDR. “The providers require a considerable lead time of at least three to six weeks to provide the connections. Therefore, we were looking for a solution that would allow us to make capacities available in a timely manner.”