NET INSIGHT S PROFESSIONAL MEDIA SOLUTIONS TERRESTRIAL BROADCAST AND MEDIA NETWORK SOLUTIONS

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1 NET INSIGHT S PROFESSIONAL MEDIA SOLUTIONS TERRESTRIAL BROADCAST AND MEDIA NETWORK SOLUTIONS

2 The choice of leading broadcasters and media network operators The terrestrial fiber infrastructure is ready to carry professional media content for contribution and distribution. The issue has been that the data-centric packet switching technologies have failed to meet the quality requirements of the broadcasting industry and media network operators. Net Insight s Nimbra platform is inherently designed to meet these requirements. This has produced a state-of-the-art broadcast and media network platform that enables our customers to build highly cost-efficient solutions with the highest technical quality and reliability. Listen to some of our customers and share their experiences. 2 EBU - EUROVISION Eurovision is the operational service of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), and is one of the world's major providers of international transmission services of live sports and news events. Over 15,000 hours of programs are transmitted live each year and have included the Olympic Games, the football World Cup, the UEFA Champions League matches, Formula 1 races, the ATP Tennis tournaments as well as the Eurovision Song Contest. EBU is servicing its more than 70 members including the largest TV companies in Europe such as the BBC, RAI, France Televisions and the German ARDgroup. Also most of the other TV and media companies around the world are regular users of the Eurovision services. A large portion of transmissions occurs between metropolitan cities. On these inter-city routes, EBU needed a cost-efficient terrestrial complement to its existing satellite network. The objective was to save cost and to achieve a higher quality by using fiber cables and a technology designed for video requirements. EBU selected Net Insight s technology platform after a period of substantial testing where Net Insight s solution was compared with alternative platforms and technologies. As requested, Net Insight s solution enables maximum utilization of leased cable capacity in combination with guaranteed highest quality, necessary for live TV transmissions. - We have spent considerable time in testing many different platforms and technologies, including MPLS and ATM. It is clear to us that Net Insight s platform is the only platform that could meet our quality requirements. It is also the most cost-efficient platform we have looked at. It has a very high bandwidth utilization and a low cost of ownership, says Didier Debellemanière, Head of Technical Development of Operations Department. Based on Net Insight s platform, EBU can offer top quality, low latency, switched video, data and voice to customers in Europe and the USA. WDR WESTDEUTSCHER RUNDFUNK WDR is Germany s largest broadcaster with studios and other production facilities in 14 cities. In order to further enhance efficiency, WDR interconnects all resources in all 14 cities in their Regionet, a switched media network based on Net Insight s platform. The network carries a mix of video, data and voice. A total of 13 types of defined services are used. Some services are permanent or semi-permanent, and others (such as SDI and ASI) are provisioned fixed and on-demand services. Touch screens in the studio control rooms provision the on-demand services. This enables studio managers to instantly set up 270 Mbps SDI streams, from any city to any city, for breaking news or other needs. ASI streams can be set up in the same way. One of WDR s key requirements is that bursty IP traffic, telephony and mission critical TV contribution and distribution streams should be transported cost efficiently, and with full

3 tors, says Delwin Bothof, who is developing the media strategy at Broadwing. quality, in one and the same network. The network is built on top of leased dark fiber, CWDM and SDH/Sonet trunk connections. Net Insight s stateof-the-art bandwidth utilization enables WDR to fill this capacity with up to 97% of video, data and voice payload. Net Insight s Nimbra platform is the only platform that can build a switched overlaid network for video, data and voice on top of any combination of dark fiber, CWDM and SDH/Sonet trunk connections. This has enabled WDR to get the best price/performance for each trunk connection. - In our market research and Tender process we have compared Net Insight s solution with solutions from many other vendors. Net Insight s solution truly stands out as way ahead of the other solutions. It is the solution that fits all of our requirements best, and it does so with a better cost efficiency than any of the competing solutions, says Dr Dieter Hoff, Technical Director of WDR. BROADWING Broadwing is a US based provider of data, voice, and video solutions to consumers, enterprises, broadcasters and media customers. Based on Broadwing's nationwide alloptical network and interconnected with their ATM and IP-core networks, Broadwing operates a coast-to-coast media network based on the Net Insight platform. - With the Net Insight platform we can offer a platform that provides any and all requirements of the media customers and with the quality of service they need. With the Broadwing network and the Net Insight equipment we also have the best and most cost-efficient multicast solution in the industry, enabling new video distribution services to broadcasters and Triple Play opera- DIGITAL MEDIA CENTRE The Digital Media Centre (DMC) provides a full range of broadcast services for channel production, origination and distribution. It is designed to originate (play out) up to 64 television channels, each with up to 16 separate audio tracks to support almost any multi-language, multi-territory television broadcast requirement. With multi-channel Playout, Postproduction, Connectivity, On-Demand- Services and Channel Management, the DMC combines technology with the experience of a dedicated resourceful team. The DMC is part of chellomedia, an innovative provider of content and services for European communications and entertainment companies. The DMC uses Net Insight s platform to deliver video, audio and data to customers in Europe over leased SDH capacity. - We have compared Net Insight s solution with many other proposals, including ATM-based solutions and we have found Net Insight s solution to be significantly more efficient, both technically and economically, says Jon Try, Vice President Broadcast Operations and Engineering. KPN BROADCAST KPN Broadcast is a part of KPN, the incumbent telecom operator of the Netherlands. KPN Broadcast operates a full redundant media network that carries a large part of the TV-channels in the Netherlands. - Net Insight s platform on top of our DWDM network truly gives us an edge on the market for premium services, says Dolf Schinkel, Manager Architecture and Projects, KPN Broadcast. SAVVIS - ABC, MSNBC, CBC AND FOX Savvis operates a media network based on Net Insight s platform. The Network interconnects MSNBC, ABC, CBS and FOX. The network enables them to collaborate and share news and other content. 3

4 Platform Overview Net Insight s Nimbra platform is inherently designed to build any size switched networks for professional video, data and voice. Any mix of HD, SDI, ASI, IPTV, PDH, SDH/Sonet and bursty IP/Ethernet can be transported with up to 97% bandwidth utilization. Latency, jitter and wander are fully within the broadcast specifications - end-to-end - even in large intercontinental networks. Net Insight s Nimbra platform is a Next Generation SDH/Sonet technology platform that has been further enhanced to serve the requirements of the broadcasting industry. Next Generation SDH/Sonet is a synchronous, circuit switching technology that is inherently designed for real time, high bandwidth transport. To further enhance the technology s suitability for broadcasters and media network operators, the Nimbra platform also implements specific video interfaces and additional standards. This makes Net Insight s Nimbra platform the leading platform for combined video, data and voice transport. ACCESS INTERFACES The Nimbra platform can transport any combination of video, data and 4

5 voice via the following access interfaces: Ethernet, 10/100 Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet with excellent support for VLAN s. ASI, with the feature of only transporting the payload through the network. SDI/SDTI with studio quality maintained over local, regional, national and international stretches. E1/T1 (2/1,5 Mbps) standard i/f e.g. for voice, PABX connectivity, frame relay or other data transport, etc. OC-3/STM-1 access for any transport (e.g. of legacy ATM streams) over the Nimbra network. High Definition is transported compressed via the SDI and ASI interfaces. All services can be multicast. TRUNK INTERFACES Net Insight s Nimbra platform is the only platform that can build a switched overlaid network for video, data and voice on top of any combination of dark fiber, CWDM and SDH/Sonet trunk connections. The following interfaces are currently supported. OC-3/STM-1 OC-12/STM-4 OC-48/STM-16 Dark fiber GUARANTEED BANDWIDTH Each individual transport stream can be allocated exactly the bandwidth needed through the network. This means that bursty IP traffic cannot interfere with real-time sensitive video streams. The allocated bandwidth can easily and instantly be increased or decreased via the automatic control plane. AUTOMATIC CONTROL PLANE The Nimbra platform uses an automatic control plane that provides end-toend service provision. This is the same functionality that is planned for the emerging GMPLS standard. Net Insight will be fully compliant to GMPLS when the specifications are finalized. LOW LATENCY, JITTER AND WANDER The synchronous transport mechanism used in the Nimbra platform is the key to very low and always constant latency. Jitter and wander are fully within the broadcast specifications and maintained end-to-end, even in large intercontinental networks. FULLY SWITCHED NETWORK SOLUTION The edge access nodes have distributed switching capabilities, enabling full any-to-any connectivity, with high scalability, and high utilization throughout the entire network. MULTICAST All services can be multicast, simply by identifying which receiving ports on the network that should listen to the signal that in each case is sent and split onto the required routes through the network. SCHEDULING All services, and the bandwidth that are allocated to a specific service, can be scheduled. A service can be scheduled to be up at specific intervals and for a predefined duration. ON-DEMAND SERVICES Since the platform has instant end-to-end provisioning of services, it is easy to provide on-demand services. This can be done from a call center or fully automated via touch screens in the control room. PROTECTION AND SECURITY The Nimbra platform has automatic re-routing mechanisms assuring that mission critical transmissions reach their destinations even when a fiber is cut or other types of network related failures occur. Two levels of protection mechanisms are available. The automatic network re-routing is typically completed well within one second. The advanced 1+1 channel protection offers less than 50 milliseconds of switch-over time. Each service is separated in the time domain that ensures that service data never interacts with other services, thus guaranteeing the highest security level for transport or multicast of any content. EASY AND COST-EFFICIENT NETWORK MANAGEMENT Due to the automatic control plane, enabling instant end-to-end service provisioning, the Nimbra platform also provides automatic node detection and topology discovery which makes network deployment and management very efficient, thus avoiding labor intensive operations and requirements for expensive specialists. 5

6 Net Insight compared to alternative terrestrial solutions Net Insight s Nimbra platform is designed to build highly cost-efficient, any-size, fully switched any-to-any networks with 100% quality of service for any mix of video, data and voice services. This enables broadcasters and media companies to fully utilize fiber and SDH/Sonet infrastructures. Significant cost reductions can be made by moving traffic from satellites, enhancing utilization on leased terrestrial links, redesigning the work flow processes etc. Alternative networking solutions on the market are typically not designed for video transport. They often show poor scalability, high cost of ownership, and fail to satisfactorily ensure quality and reliability. 6 PACKET/CELL SWITCHED NETWORKS In packet/cell switched networks, the approach of forwarding data has its inherent drawbacks when transporting delay and loss sensitive streaming traffic. The irregular packet transmission simply causes variable delay and cell/packet loss, resulting in unpredictable service reliability. Technologies like MPLS and ATM try to balance this by adding traffic engineering, traffic shaping, packet classification, and packet queuing schemes. Although such protocols and mechanisms improve the service quality of packet switched networks to a certain degree they add significant cost and complexity. For example, MPLS is a traffic engineering tool that controls the network path for specific flows and communicates their bandwidth needs to intermediate nodes. However, to allocate sufficient resources providing the bandwidth needed, a packet switched network must rely on prioritization, queuing and policing. Prioritization is based upon service types and not individual flows. This means that in a network where the counterpart of the traffic is video, essentially all traffic will have the same priority, negating the effect of prioritization. And while queuing and policing, mechanisms can ensure a statistically fair access to bandwidth resources, it still has poor capabilities to handle delay and delay variation without substantial over-provisioning. Reports and trials indicate that the actual utilization of a packet switched network may be as low as 20-30% if packet loss or significant delay variation could be avoided. MPLS, traffic shaping and policing mechanisms cannot notably increase these figures, but are rather tools to keep the utilization under control. Applying all these protocols and mechanisms to the network means introducing expensive equipment and, more importantly, many man-hours of complex engineering. These are man-hours that need to be spent each time the network changes, like when introducing a new service or adding a link to the network. Not only will this add to the operational cost of the network, but also negatively affect market responsiveness. The engineering work required keeping the QoS parameters under control dramatically increases when applying media broadcasters demands of service resiliency for live programs and multicast services. Adding any kind of dynamic services to this becomes a mission impossible. In summary, in the attempt to overcome their inherent QoS shortcomings, these solutions add complex and costly management schemes and resorts to major over-provisioning. This adds significant cost to the equation without meeting the necessary quality and reliability requirements. PROPRIETARY ADAPTATIONS TO TELECOM INTERFACES Other alternative solutions use proprietary mapping of media services onto wavelengths or SDH/Sonet framing. While these solutions can provide good quality and reliability capabilities for end-to-end media services, many fundamental disadvantages remain. Commons for these solutions are that they: Typically map media services to full wavelengths or to SDH/Sonet Virtual Circuits resulting in poor utilization of available capacity. Do not support end-to-end signalling, whereas dynamic service provisioning and bandwidth saving protection schemes cannot be implemented. Offer no or limited multicast capabilities, which is essential for many media services. Do not support switching and can therefore not scale beyond ring configurations. The poor utilization, limited scalability, and lack of efficient management lead to more equipment, more link capacity, and

7 more man-hours for engineering and operation. While also showing poor scalability these solutions do not fit larger media application networks. NET INSIGHT S SOLUTION Net Insight s solution is designed with inherent support for real time transport in flexible network environments. It is a Next Generation SDH/Sonet technology platform, which has been further enhanced with additional standards to provide end-to-end signalling, any rate switching as well as scalable multicast support. Thanks to the synchronous transport mechanism used in the solution, each service will have supreme quality, with constant predictable delay and low jitter. The platform supports exceptional high utilization rates (97 %) with maintained service quality. By allowing end-to-end signalling, studio controlled on-demand services and flexible bandwidth-saving protection mechanisms can be offered in large networks. Net Insight s platform is also the only one that can provide any rate adaptive ASI and Ethernet support and scalable multicast of any service type. With its supreme scalability and utilization capabilities for media services, Net Insight s platform offers the lowest over-all investment cost, while the endto-end signalling combined with the synchronous transportation achieves crucial operational savings in terms of reduced engineering, less configuration and faster service provisioning. 7

8 Net Insight AB Box SE Stockholm Sweden Phone +46 (0) Fax +46 (0) Net Insight Inc Winter Street Suite 1000 Waltham, MA US Phone About Net Insight Net Insight s Nimbra platform is the choice of demanding broadcasters and network operators worldwide. The platform is inherently designed to build highly cost-efficient networks that can carry video, data and voice traffic with 100% guaranteed quality of service. The platform is highly suitable for Triple Play, Broadcast and video rich Metro networks. Net Insight is listed on the Stockholm stock exchange.