As an equipment provider for worldwide, national and regional radio and television facilities, Transcom Corporation, headquartered in Huntingdon Valley, Pa., has been meeting the broadcasting capability needs of stations worldwide since 1978. Transcom specializes in distributing new TV transmitters, antenna, cable, Studio Transmitter Link (STL) and audio equipment that enable television and radio stations to transmit sound and video from the studio to the antenna.
The Challenge
Transcom’s client, Vyyo, operates a private Internet network used to provide security, power grid command and control, and intra-office data and communications. It supplies broadband access equipment for utilities in Minnesota and South Dakota.
Vyyo was facing challenges with diagnosing issues arising on its network, which led to broadcast downtime. Part of the problem was a matter of monitoring the temperature at unattended base stations consisting of transmitters, hubs and other equipment at remote sites. As the temperature rose, the stations could overheat and cause the network to shutdown. They needed to acquire a solution that allowed them to view and control the entire network over the internet from one base site network operations center (NOC).
They turned to Transcom to provide a solution to help monitor and manage nearly 80 sites on its remotely dispersed network, representing a large group of HV equipment knit together with these remotes.
“Vyyo was struggling to find a solution that enabled them to efficiently monitor their entire network,” said Martin Cooper, president of Transcom Corp. “They charged us with finding the right solution to fit their specific needs.”
Transcom went to work to find that solution, working with several vendors to deliver an answer that fit Vyyo’s specific needs. They used Davicom and SineSystems products for a time before being introduced to Asentria (formerly Omnitronix). The other solutions were never tailored to fit Vyyo’s specific needs, and adding features in order to match Vyyo’s requirements proved expensive.
The Solution
When Transcom met Asentria at a National Association of Broadcasters conference in 2005, they were looking for another solution to fit Vyyo’s needs. The two companies discussed options Asentria could offer, and determined they had a great fit. Knitting together the network with the operations center was a very large project.
“When we first started assessing the situation, we noticed that Vyyo had a lot of monitoring devices that were proprietary in nature,” said Jon Baars, director of sales at Asentria. “However, because our monitoring solutions are based on SNMP protocols, we easily integrated into their existing monitoring infrastructure, instead of having to setup and support a new software application.”
Transcom chose Asentria’s SNMP-Link SL81, with a temperature sensor and a rack unit for each base. The SL81 came with an internal modem and Ethernet access, 6 serial ports for remote control access, and 16 onboard input-output channels that gave Transcom the building block for a unique system to connect the variety of sensors Vyyo needed. What’s more, they added a temperature sensor to monitor the temperature of each site, providing them with necessary insight to prevent overheating of any station. “The solution Asentria offered was exactly what Vyyo was looking for,” Cooper commented. “They were able to tailor the offering to meet their exact needs, and they’ve backed it up with superior after-market customer support.”
To date, Transcom has purchased more than 80 units from Asentria, and plans to add more in the future. What’s more, the solution Asentria offered didn’t require Transcom to change any hardware, saving the company more than $100,000 in rip-andreplace costs.
“What Asentria offered us was the ability to keep the infrastructure we already had in place for Vyyo,” said Cooper. “All we had to do was slot it in the right place and we were able to monitor the entire network within a matter of minutes.”
The Outcome
Asentria tailored the solution directly to the configuration at the base station. Their solution was flexible, allowing Transcom to choose the features Vyyo needed. They didn’t have to pay for any control function that wasn’t required. Moreover, the solution has been very reliable.
