Case Study Snapshot
- Identified the need for a partner capable of supporting high-capacity, scalable terrestrial connectivity in an industry where bandwidth-limited satellite connectivity was often considered the norm.
- Megaport’s Software Defined Network (SDN) and global footprint enabled BMC UK to extend broadcasting solutions into Montenegro, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria.
- Saved substantial costs using Megaport’s flexible pay-as-you-go model, compared to more expensive traditional connectivity options requiring long-term contracts with fixed bandwidth capacities.
- Through Megaport, BMC customers are able to easily and rapidly connect to vScaler media services from anywhere in the world.
About BMC UK
Broadcast Media Communications (BMC UK) are media moving experts. The Company’s services combine years of video network experience, which allows them to contribute to the broadcasting of high-value media events including sports, news, and special broadcast events.
The Company’s resilient media-quality network, London Media Exchange (LMX), runs across the City of London. Whether you need audio or video, HD, UHD, or IP, BMC UK has an end-to-end solution, and their alliance with Megaport allows them to reliably move mission-critical media wherever customers want it. Their media-quality backbone, combined with cloud-based media processing – Broadcast as a Service (BaaS) – offers cost-effective, live, and file-based delivery solutions.
Since inception, BMC UK has been the preferred supplier to large, high-profile broadcasters for important media events. These include royal weddings, Fifa World Cup football matches, Wimbledon tennis matches, Le Tour de France, and international snooker tournaments. The Company also helps media organisations such as BBC News, BBC Sport, ITV, and CBC move their live media assets across their networks using the LMX service. BMC’s network carries many hours of live traffic per week for TV shows such as Strictly Come Dancing, The Last Leg, and Sunday Brunch.
Challenges
ITV Sport needed a partner to provide a terrestrial connectivity solution to help them with the successful broadcast of the football match between England and Montenegro, as part of the European Qualifiers for UEFA EURO 2020 in March 2019. BMC UK were engaged to provide this connectivity.
BMC UK have years of experience with live events, particularly those that are short in duration and traditionally incompatible with the business models of telecommunications companies. Factors such as minimum bandwidth, lengthy lock-in contracts, and long provisioning times has meant that satellite uplinks have been the go-to solution for occasional-use bandwidth needs. Satellite, while well-established, cannot provide the bandwidth for multiple video and audio and data services.
Modern broadcasting strives to keep up with accelerated workflows and ever evolving infrastructure and TV standards, such as HD and UHD. This ultimately has consequences for network connectivity and bandwidth requirements, with both needing to be fulfilled flexibly and quickly. BMC UK are constantly innovating in the digital media space and with innovations such as their vScaler media services, coupled with Megaport, the Company has been able to provide a flexible way of delivering live video to their customers.
Solutions and Benefits
Megaport provided BMC UK with a true Software Defined Networking (SDN) solution to allow them to contribute to the broadcasting of mission-critical live events, with the reach, speed of provisioning, and scalability needed to deliver a highly-anticipated major European football event to the masses.
- Cost savings: No expensive long-term contracts, as well as the ability to provision and scale services for specific events.
- Speed of provisioning: BMC UK has a busy event calendar. Being able to quickly respond to requests from the main broadcasters without having the delays associated with physical connectivity is critical to the Company’s media services.
- Flexible terms: Megaport’s pay-as-you-go, and only for what you need model delivers BMC UK substantial cost savings by avoiding the usual long-term contracts traditionally associated with global enterprise connectivity.
- Scalable bandwidth: BMC’s core service consists of compressing massive data volumes of live footage so it can be sent across the Megaport network to the Company’s media network in London. From there it is decompressed before finally reaching the broadcaster’s end destination. Being able to rapidly scale bandwidth to support these short periods of extremely high network usage is a key element of BMC UK’s capabilities.
- Global reach: Megaport’s global footprint allows BMC UK to respond to and service broadcasters’ requests around the world. Using this vast network reach, the Company was able to support football matches in Montenegro, the Czech Republic, and Bulgaria.
- Control over connections: The ability to self-serve networking requirements via the easy- to-use Megaport portal enables the Company to rapidly provision, adjust, adapt and scale their networking requirements as needed.
Megaport and vScaler
The processing and delivery of media to multiple devices and destinations is increasing at an exponential rate. vScaler enables Broadcast and Media companies to transition to IP-based infrastructures either as a physical appliance, a cloud-based service, or both in a hybrid model. Through Megaport, BMC’s customers can easily and flexibly connect to and consume vScaler media services from anywhere in the world.
Broadcast and media companies are constantly evolving, and with the transition to fully IP workflows comes the need to deliver high quality media content over scalable network infrastructure. Megaport provides us with a true SDN solution with the reach, speed of provisioning, and flexibility to deliver multiple live video feeds for high profile media events.
Lee Russell, Co-Founder BMC
Future Plans
Since the England and Montenegro match, Megaport has supported BMC UK with other international football matches, including the England and Czech Republic match in October 2019. With more events planned, BMC will continue to rely on Megaport’s NaaS solutions – the nature of these live events necessitates highly flexible, scalable, occasional-use bandwidth for BMC UK to be able to contribute to these future broadcasts.