meshLINK - ensuring an uninterrupted and stable wireless transmission
in RF-challenging environments

The Frankfurt Stock Exchange operates its own LTE network in-house to be able to continue to work autonomously in the event of a public system failure. To ensure that no one can log in from the outside in the event of an incident, considerable shielding and security measures have been taken. These measurements have led to common wireless camera systems to fail.

News production regularly takes place in front of and inside the building for daily news and stock magazines on TV, which causes some challenges for production companies. This is where meshLINK came into play.

During a PoC with news production company NEWSBOX GmbH, the task was to ensure a perfect wireless video transmission from the inside to the outside of the highly shielded building. In one shot, the camera runs from the trading floor through the corridors to the outside for shooting at the Bull & Bear (the iconic sculpture in front of the building) and back inside on the trading floor.

Joachim Knab, Managing Director at Newsbox GmbH, comments the use of meshLINK: “During the Corona restrictions, NEWSBOX was commissioned to broadcast IPOs at Frankfurt Stock Exchange live. One of the most important features of the IPO ceremony is the board members’ posing outside in front of Bull & Bear that needs a camera move from the inside to the outside and back to the inside of the stock exchange.

Thick walls and the RF-shielding of the stock exchange prevented the use of traditional microwave links. And so this particular part of the programme could not be captured in the past. When I first saw meshLINK at a trade fair, it was clear to me that this could be the solution. Thanks to Broadcast Solutions' willingness to demonstrate the system at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, it quickly became clear that meshLINK technology is the obvious choice for live coverage from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. The ability to overcome the RF-challenges plus the image quality and the very low latency were fully convincing.”

For this purpose, Broadcast Solutions installed one meshLINK radio on the ENG camera and one radio outside acting as receiving end. With adding just one radio at the entrance of the Stock Exchange’s building as a relay, the magic started to happen. During the demonstration, the meshLINK system was transmitting a 1080i50 signal at 2337 MHz with 3 Mbit / H.265 (however anything up to 4K UHD/HDR signals can be managed by meshLINK with ease).

With this setup, we could cover all scenarios the production company envisaged. The transmission’s performance, quality and latency impressed the customer NEWSBOX GmbH and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and convinced them that this is the system of choice for future productions.