Stadium arena. Photo: Edgewater Wireless

Global Invacom, a global provider of satellite communications equipment, partnered with Edgewater Wireless Systems for the further development of Broadcast WiFi (Bx-WiFi). This technology aims to enable live, high quality, and large-scale event video streaming over a Wi-Fi network.

Edgewater specializes in Wi-Fi Multi-Channel Single Radio (MCSR) technology for residential and commercial markets. Bx-WiFi was first unveiled and successfully live-tested by the BBC and Global Invacom in August 2017. The technology enables simultaneous streaming of uninterrupted audio or video content from multiple sources to thousands of smartphone or tablet devices, all connected to a hotspot in the same venue (like stadiums and arenas). It uses Forward Error Correction to maintain video quality, and multicast technology that minimizes bandwidth usage when a large number of users are simultaneously streaming.

“We are very pleased to be working with Global Invacom and to be testing the Bx-WiFi technology over our footprint of Wi-Fi hotspots. This partnership will allow us to push the boundaries of our hardware and could set a new record number for video streaming to a device on each hotspot,” said Edgewater Wireless Vice President (VP_ or Product Eric Smith. “Applications like Bx-WiFi further enhance the capabilities of our MCSR technology and further drive market demand.”