To overcome LTE congestion on location when reporting live on UK political events, Wireless Group’s TalkRADIO social media team turns to Arcus to ensure the news is new.
Owned by News Corp, Wireless Group is a leading media company that has successful radio brands in the UK and Ireland, including talkSPORT (the world’s biggest sport radio station), TalkRADIO, Virgin Radio, and several popular music stations. In addition, Wireless operates Switchdigital, a digital audio broadcasting multiplex business, and a digital services division.
Based in London, Wired Broadcast is a Celerway partner with deep experience in the broadcast segment. Since 1992, it has been a trusted provider of end-to-end broadcast and live event facilities for A-list customers around the world. In 2016, Wired Broadcast was instrumental in helping Wireless and Virgin Radio UK achieve the world’s first live launch of a radio station broadcast from a high-speed train.
College Green, the public park across from the UK Houses of Parliament, is a popular spot for broadcasters covering politics. During Brexit debates in late 2019, Wireless found that timely reporting was stymied by congested 4G networks. With upload of HD video at approximately 2 Mbps, taking between 15 and 30 minutes, the news footage TalkRADIO published was no longer quite so new.
Wireless contacted Wired Broadcast for recommendations. “They’re true professionals who know radio and understand our workflow,” says Chris Thame, Lead Stations Engineer at Wireless. Wired Broadcast provided a Celerway Arcus router for testing, outfitted with cellular data SIMs from multiple carriers. Celerway’s flagship multi-WAN router, Arcus has a throughput capacity of nearly 1 Gbps and enables up to 7 simultaneous WAN connections (3 cellular), thanks to CelerwayOS next gen load balancing software. Based on stellar performance in testing, the team put Arcus into action with the social media team for a Brexit broadcast.
Our social media team was bowled over by Arcus. We love what it did.
When TalkRADIO returned to College Green, now with Arcus, they experienced a dramatic improvement in upload speed of HD video to within 60 seconds, enabling timely publishing of news content. “Our social media team was bowled over by Arcus. We love what it did,” says Thame.
Thame says that, with these results, Arcus is a good fit for outside broadcasts at home and abroad, adding that, with a new station coming soon to Wireless, he expects company demand for Arcus to grow.