Orange Slovakia solves satellite TV distribution packet loss and customer experience challenges

Orange Slovakia solves satellite TV distribution

Orange Slovakia selects Appear’s X Platform to provide compression and scrambling modules for satellite TV distribution, and upgrade path to HEVC

Overview

Orange Slovakia, the mobile network operator, has turned to Appear to support with the delivery of TV services over satellite and ensure the reliable delivery of TV services to its subscribers.

Challenge

Today, subscribers expect nothing less than a seamless television experience. They expect high quality content, with no delay or disruption, and those that don’t receive this experience will simply look elsewhere.Orange Slovakia was experiencing packet loss on its transport streams for satellite—even if it was using high-quality input streams. This packet loss was not only a pain point for Orange’s technical team, but was impacting subscribers’ TV experience. Orange Slovakia knew it would need to improve the viewer experience, or risk losing customers.

Solution

Orange Slovakia initially deployed Appear’s X Platform to overcome this challenge. By deploying a 2RU chassis with Appear XC compression and scrambling modules, Appear ensured the secure and reliable delivery of its satellite TV content. Not only did the X Platform deliver content with minimal delay, but its modular design gives Orange the flexibility to upgrade to high efficiency video coding (HEVC) without the need to deploy additional hardware.As a long-term solution, Appear developed a software solution that Orange Slovakia could implement on its existing technology, to mitigate packet loss and ensure the reliable, secure delivery of its satellite TV services.

Why Appear

Appear worked with its reseller partner, Sunteq, for this deployment. Having a local partner on the ground was a huge benefit to Orange Slovakia, as it meant it had a technology partner it could rely on to offer support as and when it was required.Appear’s experience, combined with its unrivalled technology, also meant that Orange Slovakia had a hardware solution it could rely on. In fact, the X Platform supports the delivery of live media experience from compression to distribution, and was able to address Orange’s challenges in a single, compact, hardware chassis.Furthermore, as Appear was able to develop a bespoke software solution for Orange Slovakia to run on its existing hardware, it could develop a solution that met Orange’s individual requirements.

“Our subscribers expect the very best TV service, and suffering from packet loss was not only a frustration for our technical team, but there was danger of delivering a sub-par viewer experience. We selected Appear, via Sunteq, as it ensured we had a partner on the ground that would help us navigate these challenges. The X Platform was a short-term solution that removed packet loss, and the software that Appear developed to run on our technology means we have a solution that works exactly how we need it to,” Martin Lednar, Service Platforms & Products Manager, Orange Slovensko.

Results

Thanks to the modular architecture of the X Platform, Orange Slovakia was able to add additional multicast IP and satellite reception modules in the same chassis, thereby reducing bandwidth congestion and increasing service quality. While modules were added to ease bandwidth congestion, the bi-directional ports on these modules also reduced the total number of modules needed, where previously incoming and outgoing traffic would have required dedicated modules. Furthermore, the ability to combine multiple services onto a single platform reduced the compute, power and cooling resources that would have been needed in a disaggregated solution.

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