Broadwing expands video network again

Broadwing Communications is finding success in providing high-capacity networks for live video feeds and today will announce that it is almost doubling its Media Services Network to now reach 37 cities, to keep up with demand for high-quality real-time video feeds in high-definition TV format.

Sports programming and other live events are the primary drivers for the expansion of the Media Services Network, which launched in five cities a year ago and was expanded to 20 in April. Broadwing believes it is now operating the largest DTM or Dynamic Synchronous Transfer Mode, network in North America.

“When we set up this network were really focused on what the needs of a media company were,” said Del Bothof, Vice President/General Manager of Media Service for Broadwing Communications, a subsidiary of Broadwing. “When you look at their needs, the most rigorous is for live video.” Broadwing is teamed up with Intelsat and with HTN, a company which provides major transmission facilities specifically to the sports cable network and the broadcasting industry.

The MSN was set up specifically to meet the needs of media companies, offering pay-as-you-go bandwidth with 100% Quality of Service that can be reserved for short time periods via an automated system for quick turn-ups and tear-downs, Bothof said. Services range from 3 megabits per second for compressed video all the way up to 1.5 Gigabits per second. “That [speed] is that a pure digital signal that comes out of the camera that high definition TV requires,” he said. “Whenever they want high-definition, our network is the only one that carries that reliably. We are seeing growth because a lot more high def events are happening.”

Broadwing provides contribution quality video, as well as other file formats, and through the partnership with Intelsat, is linked to major sports venues throughout the U.S.

“There are a couple of things that are byproducts of our network,” Bothof said. “Because it is a channelized system, there is no overhead, you can buy in 512 kilobit increments no matter what quality of compression you want to use, and you can buy only what you need. Against an MPLS IP network, we can multicast. We can drop that signal off at as many points as it has to be dropped off. That’s important for sports –a lot people who want that live event signal in order to generate highlights.”

Broadwing Media Services markets now include Atlanta; Austin, Texas; Baltimore; Baton Rouge, La.; Boston; Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Columbia, Md.; Dallas; Denver; Detroit; Ft. Worth; Houston; Indianapolis; Joplin, Mo; Los Angeles; Miami; Memphis; Milwaukee; Minneapolis; New Orleans; New York; New Jersey; Orlando; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Portland; Sacramento; Salt Lake City; San Antonio; San Diego; San Francisco; Seattle; St. Louis and Washington, D.C.

Contribution video has rigorous quality standard “it gets a lot of work done to it – ads and graphics are inserted, so if you compress too much, by the time you uncompress, do work, and recompress the signal, you can get problems,” Bothof explained. Broadwing is also exploring opportunities in forward distribution, in which finished video is distributed to networks and other licensed distributors.

Video transport in general is likely to continue strong growth, he said, especially as telcos get into the video business and seek to link their super headends to content of all types.

“If you think about it – they are going to want to get to some regional headends,” Bothof said. “You think about delivering video – since they are aiming at on-demand video – a lot of that is a store and forward kind of a network. If you want to refresh a cable head-end or IPTV headend – you can do it on this kind of a network and only buy it when you need it.”