Nilesat and TVU Networks expand partnership and transmission service in Africa

TVU Networks has expanded its partnership with Egyptian satellite operator Nilesat and will help increase contribution capability for Nilesat’s African customers and decrease transmission costs.

In conjunction with a new satellite scheduled to launch in Q2 2022, TVU Networks will offer an IP contribution and delivery solution to Nilesat customers throughout the African continent. Nilesat-301 will deliver digital broadcast services to its existing customer base and extend its footprint into North Africa, East Africa and the Middle East.

TVU Servers are currently in place to receive IP streams from digital television customers sent to Nilesat’s Cairo headquarters, and TVU Networks’ TVU One mobile transmitters and TVU Anywhere mobile production app are widely deployed for remote production by Arab and African media companies. As part of this expanded partnership, TVU Networks is offering its MLink rack-mount transmitter and G-Link for point-to-point transmission to Nilesat customers in the region to create an end-to-end, IP-based delivery platform.

Hamdy Mounir, Nilesat CTO, said: “With contribution and distribution over IP networks, our customers can send their feeds to our TVU server in Cairo for uplink in a far more cost-effective way than transmitting via fibre, SNG, or satellite. We want to reduce the cost of transmission while increasing coverage reliability. In the past video transmission via traditional methods has proven cost-prohibitive, and there has been some signal interference in some countries. We’ve seen the stability and flexibility TVU technology provides our customers. They can send any IP source to our uplink with complete confidence in the transmission.”

With Nilesat 301 satellite’s impending launch, the company needed a video-over-IP delivery provider with a strong presence in Africa that could also enhance Nilesat’s worldwide connectivity. In addition to an established customer base in the region, TVU Networks has offices in Kenya, North Africa, Nigeria and South Africa.

Sushant Rai, Vice President of Sales for South Asia, Middle East and Africa at TVU Networks, added: “Given our strong regional presence, we can provide 24/7 support and a solution that’s plug-and-play in a very short period of time. The TVU server accepts all streaming protocols. No matter what IP format customers use, the TVU server can decode the signal. That also eliminates the cost of additional equipment at the headend. It’s one server, one solution for any IP protocol.” BroadcastProMe