MDR: successful leap towards greater safety and reliability Uninterrupted external transmission with SD-WAN

Nuremberg, May 06, 2020

Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) produces a varied program. This often includes outside broadcasts such as coverage of sporting events, political events or concerts. During the various live broadcasts, it is essential to avoid connection problems. To prevent this, MDR is therefore supplementing its existing systems for outside broadcasts with fail-safe router solutions from Peplink.

Ensuring reliability is essential, especially for events that are broadcast live. This is crucial both for viewer satisfaction and for maintaining the station’s image. As a rule, even the smallest interruptions are enough to make you miss exciting scenes such as a ski jumper’s victory jump. To prevent connection interruptions, MDR therefore decided to look for an additional router solution for greater security and reliability. The solution had to be especially suitable for outdoor broadcasts and easily adaptable to user requirements. In addition, existing WAN connections should be extended to include a line backup. The possibility of flexible provision of transmission capacities, independent of wired connections, was also important.

System house Ascend provided the right solution

After receiving individual advice from Vitel and Ascend GmbH, MDR opted for the Balance 710, MAX HD4 LTE-A and MAX Transit Duo LTE-A router solutions from Peplink. In addition, Peplink’s cloud-based device management, monitoring and reporting tool, InControl2, was installed on an existing VMware server.

“Ultimately, the Peplink solutions won us over with their good price-performance ratio and intuitive usability,” says Uwe Schumann, a member of the Transmission Systems and Networks department at MDR. “The versatile product range, including in particular the central management platform InControl2, and the flexibility of the network routing were exactly what we were looking for.”

Interference-free live transmission

Thanks to Peplink’s router solutions, the MDR is able to bundle all available bandwidths and ensure reliable data transmission. One of the broadcaster’s project goals was to be able to offer a central bonding solution for the entire MDR group of companies, including its subsidiaries. In future, they will operate their own routers and administer them independently.

“The integration of the Peplink devices and the bundled bandwidth, in combination with the existing transmission systems, ensures maximum reliability in the transmission of live recordings,” says Uwe Schumann. “The multi-client capable management platform InControl2 allows us to manage the solutions easily, and Peplink’s managed service also saves us time and money.”