Broadcast and Media
Bonded cellular uplinks that replace satellite trucks, keep contribution feeds running and give production teams broadcast-grade connectivity from any location.
Why Traditional Broadcast Connectivity Is Failing
Broadcast production has changed. Crews are smaller. Turnaround times are shorter. The expectation is that you can go live from anywhere, at any time, with minutes of notice. But the connectivity infrastructure most broadcasters rely on was designed for a different era.
Satellite News Gathering (SNG) trucks cost six figures to buy and thousands per day to operate. They need line-of-sight to the satellite, a trained operator, and setup time that eats into your production schedule. When weather closes in or the parking restrictions at your location make positioning impossible, you have no fallback.
Fixed fibre circuits work brilliantly at permanent studios, but they are useless for breaking news, location shoots and remote OB deployments. By the time a circuit is provisioned, the story has moved on.
Consumer mobile broadband gets crews online for basic tasks, but a single 4G or 5G connection cannot deliver the reliability or throughput that live-to-air transmission demands. One congested cell, one handover between masts, and your feed drops mid-sentence.
The gap between what broadcast operations need and what traditional connectivity delivers has been growing for years. Peplink's SpeedFusion bonding technology closes that gap.
SpeedFusion Bonding for Broadcast
SpeedFusion is Peplink's WAN bonding technology. It takes multiple internet connections, whether cellular, Wi-Fi, ethernet or satellite, and bonds them into a single encrypted tunnel. The router distributes packets across all available paths simultaneously, so if one connection degrades or drops entirely, the remaining paths absorb the load without interruption.
For broadcast, this means you can bond four cellular carriers into a single uplink that delivers aggregate throughput far beyond what any single connection can achieve. More importantly, SpeedFusion's WAN Smoothing feature duplicates critical packets across multiple paths. If a packet is lost on one carrier, the duplicate arrives on another. The result is a clean, uninterrupted video stream even when individual cellular connections are unstable.
This is not theoretical. Production teams across the UK and internationally are replacing SNG trucks with Peplink bonded cellular solutions. A single HD4 MBX in a vehicle or flyaway case bonds four 5G/LTE modems into an uplink that consistently delivers 80 to 150 Mbps aggregate throughput. That is enough for multiple HD contribution feeds running simultaneously.
The SpeedFusion tunnel terminates at a FusionHub virtual appliance hosted in a data centre, which provides the fixed IP address and stable egress point that your MCR or playout system expects. From the receiving end, the bonded connection looks and behaves exactly like a dedicated fibre circuit.
How Broadcast Teams Use Peplink
SNG Replacement and Live Uplinks
The most common deployment we build is a direct replacement for SNG satellite uplinks. An HD4 MBX with four 5G/LTE modems, fitted with roof-mounted MIMO antennas and bonded via SpeedFusion, delivers a reliable uplink from locations where satellite would previously have been the only option. One UK news organisation replaced three SNG trucks with Peplink-equipped vehicles and recovered the capital cost within eight months through reduced operational expenditure alone.
Remote Production and At-Home Production
The shift toward remote production, sometimes called "at-home" or REMI (Remote Integration Model), means that camera feeds, audio, comms and data all need to travel from the venue back to a central production facility. SpeedFusion bonding provides the return path. We deploy MAX Transit Duo Pro units as compact, portable contribution encoders that bond two cellular connections for single-camera remote hits. For larger productions with multiple camera feeds, the HD4 MBX provides the throughput headroom needed for simultaneous HD streams.
Contribution Feeds
Contribution feeds carry raw or lightly compressed video from a location back to the production facility for editing, grading and playout. These feeds are bandwidth-hungry and intolerant of packet loss. SpeedFusion's Forward Error Correction (FEC) and WAN Smoothing modes are specifically designed for this type of traffic. We configure profiles that prioritise video transport packets, applying aggressive FEC to protect against cellular jitter while keeping latency within acceptable bounds for near-live production workflows.
OB Truck Connectivity
Outside Broadcast trucks need reliable connectivity for multiple purposes simultaneously: live uplinks, file transfers, production comms, internet access for the crew and remote access for engineers. We segment these traffic types using VLANs on the Peplink router, each with its own bandwidth allocation and SpeedFusion profile. Critical live uplink traffic gets bonding with WAN Smoothing. File transfers get bonding for maximum throughput. Crew internet gets a basic failover profile. Everything runs through the same HD4 MBX, managed from a single interface.
Multi-Camera Event Coverage
Sporting events, press conferences and award ceremonies often require multiple cameras feeding back to a gallery or remote production hub. We deploy multiple MAX Transit Duo Pro units, one per camera position, each bonding two cellular connections. All units tunnel back to the same FusionHub instance, giving the production team a unified view of all feeds. This approach scales easily: add another camera position, add another Transit Duo Pro. No cabling runs, no fibre patches, no waiting for venue infrastructure.
A Typical Broadcast Deployment
A regional broadcaster needed to cover breaking news and scheduled events across a large geographic area without the cost and logistics of SNG trucks. They asked us to design a solution that could deliver at least 30 Mbps bonded uplink from any UK location with reasonable cellular coverage.
We fitted two vehicles with Peplink HD4 MBX routers, each with four SIM slots populated with different carriers. Roof-mounted 5G/LTE MIMO antennas gave the modems the best possible signal in urban and semi-rural environments. Each router was configured with a SpeedFusion bonding profile using WAN Smoothing at 50% duplication, providing clean video transport with enough redundancy to survive the loss of any single carrier.
The SpeedFusion tunnels terminated at a FusionHub Solo instance running in a London data centre, providing static IP addresses for integration with the broadcaster's existing MCR ingest infrastructure. We also configured a secondary FusionHub at a disaster recovery site for resilience.
The production team paired the Peplink uplink with their existing HEVC encoders. Within a week, they were broadcasting live from locations that previously required either an SNG truck or a temporary fibre install. The aggregate bonded throughput typically measured between 80 and 120 Mbps across the four carriers, more than enough for a high-quality HD feed with headroom to spare.
We manage both vehicles under a single InControl2 organisation, with real-time alerts for signal degradation, SIM data usage thresholds and tunnel health. The broadcaster's operations team can see the status of both trucks on a map view and check connectivity before dispatching a crew.
Peplink Hardware for Broadcast
We supply, pre-configure and support the full Peplink range. These are the models most commonly deployed in broadcast and media environments.
Peplink HD4 MBX
The workhorse of broadcast bonding. Four embedded 5G/LTE modems with external antenna connectors deliver aggregate bonded throughput that rivals dedicated fibre. FlexModule bays allow modem upgrades as 5G networks mature. Built for vehicle mounting with vibration resistance and wide temperature tolerance. This is the router that goes into OB trucks, flyaway kits and permanent outside broadcast installations.
Best for: OB trucks, SNG replacement, high-throughput live uplinks, multi-feed contribution.
View in Shop →Peplink MAX Transit Duo Pro
Dual cellular mobile router in a compact form factor. Two 5G-ready modems with SpeedFusion bonding, GPS tracking and Wi-Fi as WAN capability. Ideal for single-camera remote hits, portable flyaway kits and journalist backpacks. Mounts easily in vehicles or fits into a Pelican case with an encoder for rapid deployment. Draws minimal power and can run from a V-mount battery for fully wireless operation.
Best for: Remote reporter kits, single-camera contribution, portable flyaway cases, backup uplinks.
View in Shop →FusionHub Solo
Virtual SpeedFusion appliance that runs in any data centre or cloud environment. Acts as the tunnel termination point for all your field routers, providing static IP addresses and stable egress for integration with MCR ingest systems. Supports up to 100 SpeedFusion peers, so you can manage your entire fleet of OB vehicles and portable kits from a single instance. Low monthly licence cost compared to dedicated hardware.
Best for: Tunnel termination, MCR integration, centralised fleet management.
View in Shop →Why Broadcasters Work with The Tech Factory
We are a Peplink Gold Partner with over fifteen years of experience deploying connectivity infrastructure for broadcast and media organisations. That means we understand both the technology and the operational reality of live production.
- Pre-configured hardware. Every router ships configured and tested against your specific encoder, your SpeedFusion profile and your FusionHub instance. Unbox it, mount it, connect your encoder and you are live.
- SIM management. We supply multi-network Alchemy SIM cards that work across all UK carriers, or we can provision SIMs from specific carriers to match your coverage requirements. Data pooling across your fleet keeps costs predictable.
- Antenna design. We specify and supply the right antennas for your vehicle type and mounting constraints. Roof-mounted MIMO panels, magnetic mounts for rapid deployment, and mast-mounted options for temporary fixed installations.
- FusionHub hosting. We can host your FusionHub instance in our UK data centre, or help you deploy it in your own infrastructure. Either way, we configure and maintain it as part of your managed service.
- Ongoing support. We monitor your fleet via InControl2, handle firmware updates, manage SIM data allocations and respond when something needs attention. Our engineers understand broadcast workflows, not just networking.
- UK-based engineering team. No offshore helpdesks. When you call, you speak to the engineers who built your network.
Services for Broadcast Teams
These are the services most relevant to broadcast and media deployments. Each page covers the service in detail.
Peplink Deployment
Supply, configuration and installation of Peplink routers, access points and switches. Every device ships pre-configured and tested against your requirements.
SpeedFusion Configuration
Bonding, WAN Smoothing and Hot Failover profiles tailored to your traffic. We configure SpeedFusion for lossless video transport, file transfers and production comms.
Managed Services
24/7 monitoring via InControl2, firmware management, SIM management and monthly reporting. We keep your broadcast connectivity running so your team can focus on production.
Network Design
Topology diagrams, IP schemes, VLAN segmentation and bandwidth planning for your broadcast infrastructure, before any hardware ships.
Ready to replace your satellite truck?
Tell us what you are trying to broadcast, from where and on what timeline. We will design a bonded cellular solution, spec the hardware and give you a clear, fixed-price proposal. No obligation. No jargon.