Harris to Introduce Radio Industry's Transport of Audio Over IP

August 10, 2024

by -- Harris Corporation

Harris Corporation's Broadcast Communications Division comes to IBC with the radio broadcast industry's first managed platform for the transport of audio over IP.

Intraplex(R) NetXpress(TM), the next generation of Harris' Intraplex line of reliable transport solutions, is a managed networking platform with the ability to send multiple services over one IP connection while allowing an operator to control and monitor the entire operation from a central area. Radio broadcasters can transport multiple audio programs
in multiple formats, local area network (LAN) data, and PBX/PABX telephone communications over a single IP connection. The result is a far more cost- and bandwidth-efficient transport network compared to the expense of using separate dedicated E1/T1 circuits and individual
codecs.

Intraplex(R) NetXpress(TM) arms stations with a suite of hardware and software tools for redundancy, error mitigation, quality of service, and network performance monitoring to create the most reliable audio transport over IP system available for radio broadcasters today. Furthermore, Intraplex(R) NetXpress(TM) serves as a gateway to reliable IP transport through a platform that allows radio broadcasters to
gradually transition from E1/T1 or work within a hybrid IP/TDM network.

Existing Intraplex(R) customers can protect their investment and take advantage of the new system's dual-bus structure. Intraplex(R) NetXpress(TM) provides both a high-speed bus to enable new high-performance features, and a multi-channel E1/T1 bus that allows users to repurpose their existing inventory of Intraplex(R) E1/T1 family channel modules within the IP environment. Broadcasters who implement this cost-effective approach can move incrementally to IP, thus avoiding
the expense of building an entirely new infrastructure.

"The transition to an IP environment makes sense for radio broadcasters who are looking to move beyond the expense and limitations of transport over fixed bandwidth circuits," said Bob Band, channel sales manager for EMEA, Harris Networking Solutions. "The ability to reliably transport
audio, voice, and data over a robust, lower-cost IP connection in a point-to-multipoint design is clearly more efficient than the typical point-to-point design of E1 circuits. The new system also maintains the powerful level of reliability and robustness that has been a hallmark of Intraplex products for years. Broadcasters can establish links between multiple studios and transmission sites, ensuring that each station
within a specific group can not only share on-air and production sources but remain on the air even in the harshest conditions."

A typical installation features Intraplex(R) frames at each studio and a transmitter featuring various Intraplex(R) channel modules. Individual Intraplex(R) channel modules can be turned on or off during any application using a Web browser or SNMP network manager. Using both new and legacy channel modules, services can be multiplexed into a single
stream destined for one location or as separate streams to multiple locations. Intraplex(R) NetXpress(TM) also offers very low delay and Forward Error Correction - just two examples of the system's comprehensive suite of hardware and software tools.

Intraplex(R) NetXpress(TM) is slated for commercial availability in early 2024.

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