RapidSwitch helps international live streaming company bloom in Arab Spring
Dedicated hosting helps Livestation win bigger news streaming contracts
Livestation, the largest aggregator of live streaming television news, has credited the dedicated hosting it gets from RapidSwitch for helping it cope with a phenomenal growth in traffic during the Arab Spring.
Livestation works with the world’s biggest broadcasters, making their news available in an IP format and streaming it through websites, smartphone apps and even set top boxes. The company is based in Shoreditch, London, the UK’s digital and tech hub.
Demand for news from the Middle East during the Arab Spring protests caused Livestation’s web traffic to surge from less than 1 million to almost 15 million unique visitors per month.
Lippe Oosterhof, CEO of Livestation, says: “The Arab Spring was transformational for us. To deal with the spike in traffic, hosting from RapidSwitch was absolutely critical. Broadcasters like Al Jazeera were relying on us for streaming so it was the only way for us to deliver our service in what was a very, very challenging time.”
Livestation has just won a deal to deliver Sky News via the internet to viewers in the US and Canada. Viewers there can now receive Sky News’ international feed by subscribing to Livestation for $2.99 a month.
Lippe Oosterhof, explains: “Livestation couldn’t have grown as fast as it has if it wasn’t for the efficient and resilient dedicated hosting we get from RapidSwitch. Even before this latest deal with Sky News we had grown by over 300 per cent in the past year alone.”
The Livestation platform is hosted in RapidSwitch’s Maidenhead data centre where a collection of satellite dishes and dedicated servers linked by fibre optic runs delivers high quality signals at the fastest speeds.
RapidSwitch works with a number of live streaming companies which often require tier 1 peering arrangements with plenty of high quality, low latency bandwidth.
Sarah Haran, managing director of RapidSwitch, says: “At RapidSwitch we have one of the fastest and most resilient UK networks for both UK and overseas bound traffic.”
Joe Connor, CTO of Livestation, adds: “RapidSwitch brings Livestation great service stability. Technical support staff are on site 24 hours a day which means we can work on what matters to us, without worrying about the technology falling over.”
View the video case study for Livestation at http://www.rapidswitch.com/casestudies.aspx
RapidSwitch is part of iomart Group plc, one of the top cloud service providers in the world according to the annual Talkin’ Cloud report.
About RapidSwitch
RapidSwitch is one of the UK’s leading managed hosting and dedicated server companies. Based in Maidenhead, Berkshire, the company hosts over 4,000 servers for a wide range of clients and employs more than twenty staff. Founded in 1999, it has grown rapidly over the past few years, with a well-deserved reputation for excellent customer service. RapidSwitch is focused on delivering highly reliable managed hosting solutions for its clients. RapidSwitch is a subsidiary of AIM listed iomart Group plc. For more information about RapidSwitch visit www.rapidswitch.com
About iomart Group plc
iomart Group plc (AIM:IOM) is one of the UK’s leading providers of managed hosting and cloud computing services. From a single server through to private cloud networks, iomart specialises in the delivery and management of mission-critical hosting services, enabling customers to reduce the costs, complexity and risks associated with maintaining their own web and online applications.
By physically owning and managing its own network infrastructure, including five state-of-the-art data centres in the UK, iomart offers world-beating levels of service to its customers. The Group offers a unique 100% uptime guarantee with all hosting services being engineered to ensure no single point of failure.
iomart Group operates in its chosen markets through a number of subsidiaries: iomart Hosting, RapidSwitch, Easyspace, EQSN and Westcoastcloud. The group has been listed on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) since April 2000. For more information about iomart Group plc visit www.iomart.com
