ViewSat Establishes Proactive Monitoring For 'Out-of-Footprint' Channels With Volicon Observer RPM

Volicon has announced that ViewSat is using the Observer Remote Program Monitor (RPM) to monitor "out of footprint" channels the company delivers to markets in the Middle East and North Africa.
Now, rather than rely on alerts from local partners, ViewSat uses the Observer RPM to monitor 19 different channels delivered via satellite, enabling a prompt response to any audio or video quality issues.
Awaes Jaswai, CEO of ViewSat, said: "With features including auto scanning of channels, configurable audio, video outage parameters, audio bars, full-screen viewing, error loggings, and remote control, the Observer RPM gives us the tools we need to monitor our services more effectively and to take a more proactive approach to maintaining service-level agreements.
"The system's Web-base interface supports convenient remote monitoring, making it easy for our staff to watch 'out-of-footprint' feeds. The Observer RPM's error alerts ensure that our engineers can react and begin troubleshooting very quickly."
From its network operations centre in the UK, ViewSat provides global broadcast and distribution services to Africa, the Middle East, and other areas of world. Monitoring remote broadcasts delivered by ViewSat via Atlantic Bird 4a, the Observer RPM scans channels around the clock and automatically tests signal integrity, issues alerts (via email and SNMP), and captures the problematic content when channels do not conform to prespecified limits. The Observer RPM can monitor linear content for video or audio errors such as closed captioning, audio levels, and static screen or black screen. Authorised ViewSat operators access video and monitoring tools through an intuitive and secure Web-based interface.
Mike Asebrook, Senior Director of Product Marketing at Volicon, said: "Used in monitoring of 'out-of-footprint' services, the Observer RPM allows broadcast and transmission service providers such as ViewSat to eliminate time-consuming manual visual channel inspections.
"Rather than wait passively for updates from in-market partners, ViewSat now can monitor its services far more proactively and cost-effectively, using local staff to evaluate video according to the company's own parameters."
(KMcA)