Bordeaux-Mérignac, France -  WorldCast Systems has announced a partnership with Norwegian based development company TheRadioHub to provide a data-transfer solution for digital radio worldwide.

TheRadioHub is integrating the APT SureStreamer unit from WorldCast Systems into their portfolio, including it in all their solutions for digital broadcasting. The APT SureStreamer enables TheRadioHub to replace the dedicated internet links and expensive EDI-switches that were previously required to provide reliability within the DAB network with easily affordable public internet links.

Egil Martin Solberg of TheRadioHub explains the benefits that the APT SureStreamer has brought to their customers. “We are, of course, delighted that we can make significant savings by replacing expensive routers, switches and lines with a single SureStreamer unit as well as massively reduce the set-up time required. However, the real benefit is that, with the SureStreamer, we can create a much stronger connection for our customers.  With dual lines and multiple connections, you get the strongest, most reliable EDI-connection I have ever heard of or tried. I am amazed how well this works!”

TheRadioHub use the APT SureStreamer with DAB Licence option to transport both IP audio and EDI, (Encapsulation of DAB Interfaces standard) which enables DAB/DAB+ signals to be distributed via IP lines.  EDI is a highly sensitive data-transfer protocol which means that, should just a few packets be lost, the transmission loses synchronization. The DAB transmitter can then take up to 20 seconds to resync and get audio back on air; a catastrophic failure for all radio stations in the multiplex.

Due to this sensitivity, dedicated or managed internet links coupled with EDI-switches have been required to ensure that packet loss was not an issue. However, even this was not a perfect solution as the EDI switches would, as the name suggests, switch between available lines when it was detected that some packets were missing from a stream and this can lead to issues with Single Frequency Networking.

The public internet, with its regular dropouts and frequent jitter, was just not a viable option. However, SureStream technology has been designed to enable highly reliable data transfer over one or multiple links of just this type. It has been used for several years within WorldCast Systems’ own range of APT IP codecs but the APT SureStreamer unit makes the technology available as a standalone box for applications such as those provided by TheRadioHub.

After extensive testing and great results on several customer networks, the APT SureStreamer is now a critical part of DAB solution, offered by TheRadioHub.  Summarizing the outcome of the test, Solberg said, “Anybody running a DAB-system has got to use SureStream. It solves so many issues regarding EDI distribution, and at the same time makes planning easier and costs lower. And of course, it makes the network so much stronger. For the first time since building the network, I now can sleep at night without being worried.”