April 2026

Introduction

For more than 50 years, satellite has been the primary mode of delivering broadcast television feeds to affiliate TV stations and regional cable headends for distribution to consumers. However, with the widespread availability of high-quality internet, cloud technology, and distribution protocols, a more efficient, flexible, and cost-effective way to accomplish this delivery now exists. This case study describes how Encompass Digital Media is using Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) in tandem with Zixi’s platform and protocol to deliver high-quality television feeds using scalable cloud and IP delivery architectures, capable of reaching thousands of MVPD headends, TV Stations, and vMVPD ingest/aggregation points affordably and reliably without the need for a spacecraft and bespoke reception infrastructure.

Background

For the past several decades, satellite transmission has been the most cost-effective and reliable means to deliver national and regional TV content to local stations and cable affiliates. To enable this, content providers buy a fixed amount of satellite transponder slots and deliver signals to specialized earth stations with satellite antennas and related equipment. Downstream affiliate sites then utilize antennas and related equipment to receive the incoming signals from satellites in geostationary orbit.

Figure 1: Diagram showing multiple satellite contribution/distribution use cases for television
Figure 1: Diagram showing multiple satellite contribution/distribution use cases for television

However, in the last few years, several factors have changed:

  • The number of physical locations to deliver to has reduced significantly. This means a higher cost per target for satellites because satellite capacity costs have remained fixed, but the content provider is delivering to fewer locations.
  • Bandwidth requirements for delivering individual channels are increasing with the growing adoption of HDR, UHD, spatial audio, and higher frame rate progressive services.
  • Satellite recipient platforms (e.g., cable) are currently challenged to retain paying subscribers at current price points, putting extreme financial pressure on carriage/affiliate deals.
  • Satellite transmission equipment capex refresh cycles are being delayed because of the uncertainty about satellite’s future – this puts the reliability at risk.
  • Satellite contracts typically require 5 to 10-year commitments, but because of the uncertainty, broadcasters are reluctant to commit to such lengthy terms.
  • The “5G repack” has resulted in ~60% less capacity available for broadcasters, increasing the price of satellite capacity. The FCC has announced that the majority (100-180MHz) of the remaining 220MHz of upper C-Band spectrum in the United States is due to be auctioned by July 4th, 2027.

The Encompass, Zixi, and OCI Solution

As the broadcast industry’s largest managed services provider, Encompass Digital Media (EDM) handles contribution, playout, master control, and physical distribution for hundreds of content and channel feeds worldwide, operating numerous teleports/earth stations across four continents. Foreseeing the imminent challenges to satellite contribution and distribution, EDM explored combinations of public internet and dedicated fiber transmission of content signals before arriving at an optimal configuration using the Oracle Cloud, the Zixi software platform. and the public internet exclusively. Known as Altitude Connect, EDM is operating this solution today for multiple clients across North America, Europe and Asia.

In developing Altitude Connect, EDM had the following requirements:

  1. Leverage the core public internet architecture for primary delivery of broadcast feeds to affiliates on a global basis
  2. Deploy robust technologies, including adaptive forward error correction (FEC) and automatic repeat request (ARQ), to ensure reliable delivery of broadcast video across the internet
  3. Deliver end-to-end monitoring for customer networks with detailed telemetry all the way to the customer integrated receiver/decoders (IRDs) and native IP receive points, enabling network optimization and control of latency
  4. Create a blueprint for IP delivery services that is highly fault-tolerant, with no single point of failure by leveraging geographically diverse cloud regions and automatic hitless failover switching
  5. Ensure interoperability with legacy customer IRDs, providing a capex-lite transition path minimizing the need for network technology refresh
  6. Protect customers’ feeds by supporting legacy satellite encryption and affiliate management plus offer alternative nonproprietary options to avoid vendor lock in
Figure 2: Diagram showing Altitude Connect’s hybrid satellite and cloud television signal architecture
Figure 2: Diagram showing Altitude Connect’s hybrid satellite and cloud television signal architecture

To operate a highly resilient broadcast architecture, Encompass delivers each channel’s feed into at least two OCI cloud regions; the service is currently active in Phoenix, Ashburn, London, Frankfurt, Singapore, and Sydney. Within Encompass’ compute footprint at each region, redundant instances of their Zixi provided Altitude Connect Engine receive the incoming feeds via the Ingress Gateway, apply the Zixi (and/or SRT and RIST) protocol and additional encryption/packaging/grooming, and feed out to multiple endpoints.

Zixi Market Switching control using standards like SCTE 224-ESNI, required for blackouts of local sports events and content substitution, is also included in the Altitude Connect Engine. As a fully managed service, Encompass uses software signal monitoring probes to analyze all feeds for any issues (e.g., audio/video encode issues, packet loss, etc.) and alert upon issue detection.

The feeds are distributed over the public internet using Zixi and SRT packaged streams to local affiliate and MVPD IRD appliances (sometimes at an operator Meet Me Room), whereby the signals enter the channel chain exactly as they would if delivered over satellite or dedicated fiber. As affiliate and MVPDs further modernize their infrastructure, there is a path to remove the IRD entirely and deliver directly to the affiliates’ media pipeline, increasing resiliency and removing the need for antennas, IRDs, and capital investment for local stations.

At each point in the video signal’s end-to-end delivery chain, real-time telemetry data provided by Zixi’s ZEN Master orchestration, monitoring, and control plane is monitored by Encompass staff 24×7 to help ensure any issues not automatically handled are detected, escalated, and resolved quickly. IP distribution provides real-time two-way telemetry of each affiliate’s IRD/receive software, and unlike satellite, customers can see the status of their network in fine detail via the Altitude Connect dashboard.

Advantages to a Broadcaster

There are numerous advantages to a broadcaster and services provider to adopt this delivery model, including:

  • Cost model: Broadcasters are estimated to save at least 15-20% of their distribution costs by switching to this model, with some customers reporting that they would be able to achieve up to 40-60% savings compared to similar infrastructure on AWS or Google Cloud. These savings can increase if the broadcast signals are event-driven (vs. 24x7x365 channels) as broadcasters need only pay for what they need, only when they need it. Additionally, this model closely aligns and scales cost to usage (OpEx) vs. the traditional delivery model, which requires a fixed spend (CapEx).
  • Transparent migration: Altitude Connect is able to deliver the same streams used over satellite via IP, allowing for a staged migration and requiring no additional investment in encoding and decoding infrastructure.
  • Resilience: Satellite distribution is impacted by conditions such as rain fade, whereas the public internet is inherently resilient by design.
  • Monitoring: With satellite distribution, obtaining real-time telemetry data is challenging, if not impossible. With the Encompass/OCI/Zixi solution, broadcasters can see (often for the first time) their complete end-to-end distribution network architecture and any actual yellow or red flags at any point in the chain in near real time.
Figure 3: Diagram showing Altitude Connect’s cloud-hosted centralized switching architecture
Figure 3: Diagram showing Altitude Connect’s cloud-hosted centralized switching architecture
  • Business/Legal Compliance Support: Traditionally, for nationally delivered signals to local regions via satellite, a switch from one signal to another (e.g., due to blackout rules) is done at the market level. With the new architecture, switching can be controlled and monitored centrally so that only the correct feed is delivered to every endpoint.
  • Flexibility: Historically, when broadcasters have wanted to experiment with new channel formats or introduce event channels or alternative channels, they’ve been prohibited from doing so due to a lack of fixed transponder space or other physical constraints. With the new architecture, broadcasters can innovate and experiment with new channels without the overhead and restrictions of satellite.

Why Encompass Chose OCI’s Cloud Solution

Encompass evaluated numerous cloud solutions for Altitude Connect and chose OCI for a variety of reasons:

  • Oracle’s cloud is built with a focus on network, and Encompass saw the most positive results in moving heavy volumes of data (e.g., broadcast video streams) from end to end.
  • OCI provided Encompass with in-depth access to monitoring the network, giving them a greater degree of visibility and control of streams and signals.
  • OCI’s pricing model (e.g., concerning egress costs) played a significant role in helping Encompass formulate its Altitude Connect offering as a cost-savings enabler with public egress up to 10x lower than other cloud hyperscalers.

Summary

By replacing satellite distribution with a robust cloud and IP-based delivery solution, broadcasters can lower their expenses and scale cost to usage, achieve greater resilience, enable more accurate monitoring and finer controls over their signal delivery to stakeholders, and have greater flexibility to support new business models and innovations in channel creation and delivery. Today, the Encompass Altitude Connect platform, in partnership with OCI and powered by Zixi, delivers high-quality television and radio feeds using scalable cloud and IP delivery architectures, reaching thousands of cable and MVPD headends affordably and reliably without the need for a spacecraft.