The SES3200: a New Standard for Mobile Broadband

In its 2010 National Broadband Plan, the Federal Communications Commission forecasted an additional 300 MHz would be required within the next four years alone to meet the telecommunication needs of mobile broadband users, and 500 MHz within another few years, and all for good reason. Consider that within the first weekend after its release, Apple’s new iPhone 4S sold over 4 million units in the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Canada, Japan, and Australia. Now consider that high-resolution video enabled by H.264 formatting in today’s smartphones can easily surpass 3 million bits per second, an enormous figure by anyone’s estimate. Finally, accept as a given that the worldwide number of users of the mobile Web is set to rise dramatically (currently there are 116 million American mobile Web users alone), and you can begin to appreciate the bit rate levels that will soon – that indeed at this moment are needed – to sustain a mobile Web with the appropriate speed and graphics levels that smart-phone users demand. 

With the prospect of a broadband traffic-jam of epic proportions looming our way, Telairity has begun to address the issue head-on.  Last year at the NationalAssociation of Broadcasters (NAB) convention in Las Vegas, we introduced our new SES3200 Video Encoding System, capable of producing 32 channels of video and 128 channels of audio for the individual user. The SES3200 encoder supports all these functions while still having a low bit rate, in addition to possessing high-res clarity and speed.

The price-tag for the SES3200 is more savvy, too, since companies can now forego having to use multiple encoder devices (and thereby take up more bandwidth) to attain that sheer volume of channels; they can now simply purchase an SES3200 and have done with it. These factors can only prove useful in the coming years, now that China has surpassed the United States in numbers of smartphones sold (24 million units sold in the 3^rd quarter of last year alone, in comparison with America’s 23.3 million units sold during a similar time-frame), and smartphone usage is expected to surge in countries like India, Brazil, South Africa, as well as throughout Southeast Asia. 

As the “online airwaves” grow ever more exponentially congested, the solution cannot simply be to increase bandwidth. The solution also must lie in reducing bandwidth consumption. With its SES3200 low bit rate encoder, Telairity not only anticipates helping reduce congestion in North America and Europe, but expects as well to play a prominent role in helping the companies of developing nations accommodate high-resolution mobile technology into their daily business cycles.

With FanVision on the Rise, It’s a Matter of Time before Telairity Makes It to the Superbowl

Just in case you haven’t already heard the news, Superbowl XLVI is barreling your way this coming weekend. A record-breaking number of American households are expected to tune into this year’s game in Indianapolis, mostly through television, but also an increasing number via interactive platforms such as Internet television. For those who will be attending the game physically, the visual experience will be, as yet, limited (for the most part) to their own pairs of eyes.

That wouldn’t be the case if Indianapolis came equipped with FanVision technology, like an growing number of NFL stadiums do (in addition to the University of Michigan’s Wolverine Stadium, the single largest sports stadium in the U.S.). Using FanVision’s signature 10-channel hand-held controllers, attendees have been able to personalize their experiences of football games like no previous live audiences have been able. By viewing instant replays, by monitoring game stats in real time, by tracking live commentary and more, fans can now interweave, in many stadiums, between the real, live sporting-event and its virtual broadcast without ever leaving their seats.

Telairity has played no small role in helping develop FanVision’s new live-meets-interactive technology. When you consider just how much bandwidth a high-speed, high-definition, hand-held interactive device usually takes up, and then try to picture some 50,000+ pairs of hands each using such a device in a crowded stadium, you wouldn’t be faulted for thinking that the speed and picture quality of FanVision would be something less than great.

But that hasn’t been the case. Telairity’s Series 9000 (SD) H.264/AVC encoders allow excellent speed and video quality for FanVision technology. With each of FanVision’s ten channels employing something along the lines of 750 kilobytes of space, and there being 10 MB of bandwidth space for the stadium overall, large numbers of fans can access simultaneously the same FanVision channels without any bandwidth overcrowding. Few if any companies could design encoders that winnow down a channel to a mere 750 kilobytes, but Telairity has proved itself an ingenuous exception time and again, in this instance as well as others.

What do the fans think of FanVision? The reaction across the board is overwhelmingly (maybe even sometimes explosively) positive. As a fan from St. Louis says about his FanVision console, :I love it, I won’t even go to the bathroom without it.” Or as “tailgatejoe” from Denver puts it, “For any of you wondering whether it is worth the money, the short answer is HELL YES!” Or as another Denver Broncos fan puts it in milder and perhaps more accurate language, “The picture quality and smoothness of the video were tremendous.”

FanVision got its formal start in 2010 at eleven major football venues, but with the unmatched power of Telarity’s optimal encoding technology, and with football growing bigger by the year as a sport and as an enterprise, it’s only getting started. With FanVision’s stunning high-def visual clarity, seamless interactivity and speed that can run circles around Chris Johnson, it’s only a matter of time before FanVision makes it to the Superbowl.