The Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) has recently signed a three-year Service Level Agreement (SLA) with Jasco Broadcast Solutions, extending the original SLA of one year.
This SLA covers second-line support across a variety of equipment from studios to final control, ensuring that any issues are resolved within agreed-upon time frames and that all equipment continues to function error-free. Maintaining availability of technology within the television centre is critical to the continued operations of the NBC, and as such this SLA is essential to the business.
Over the past five years, Jasco Broadcast Solutions has been instrumental in upgrading legacy infrastructure and solutions at NBC to improve workflow, increase storage and enable integrated management and control of all media assets. In addition, Jasco Broadcast Solutions has assisted NBC on its journey toward digital terrestrial transmission, implementing a Multichannel Control Room in 2013 that monitors outgoing and off air television signals to identify and resolve breakdowns in transmission. The SLA extension highlights further growth in this relationship, offering essential services to ensure that NBC can provide world-class content delivery to its audience.
“As the national broadcaster of Namibia, the NBC is mandated with providing uninterrupted transmission, both for customer satisfaction purposes and to meet their own compliance objectives. Ensuring that internal systems experience maximum uptime and availability is therefore a crucial business function. As a long-standing customer of Jasco Broadcast Solutions, with a relationship that has evolved over the years, we were the ideal choice to provide this vital service,” says Paul Divall, Managing Director – Intelligent Technologies at Jasco, incorporating Broadcast Solutions.
The SLA covers pre-defined repair and support services on a variety of different system components from the studios to the final control systems. These components include: Sony studio cameras; video production equipment; audio systems; ClearCom intercom systems; transmission control routing switchers; master control switchers; XOR Media playout servers; Avid automation systems; and Axon monitoring and compliance recording equipment. The SLA also covers the Avid newsroom computer systems (NRCS), Avid editing systems for news and production, the Avid ISIS centralised storage solution and the playout servers. In addition, the SLA incorporates regular site visits to proactively monitor and maintain NBC’s computerised editing and newsroom systems.
“The television centre is the heart of our business, and if it fails we cannot transmit footage. Maintaining this centre is therefore a critical business function. Jasco Broadcast Solutions offers second line support if our technicians are unable to resolve issues themselves, first telephonically and if this fails they fly a resource out to repair the problem. While our operations staff are skilled at first line support, with a host of different systems and solutions in place, it is impossible for us to retain the diverse set of skills required to maintain everything in-house. It is therefore a cost-effective option to have SLAs in place with service providers like Jasco. We are pleased to have negotiated a three-year extension on our existing one-year SLA with Jasco Broadcast Solutions,” says Aldred Dreyer, Chief Technology Officer at NBC.