http://vidovation.com/bo...ellular-video-uplink-180

I wonder the cost? I really need something like this for a big gig next year where I have to broadcast up to 20 live video feeds all within 3-5 miles away all going to one location for live switching for broadcast....I was going run fiber thru the town,,,ha ha !! Imagine that!!

I use Aviwest solutions regularly here in France. Aviwest is a French company.

Things to consider:

- even with 8 SIM cards it is sometimes difficult to get enough bandwidth when you work in an event with many people around. It's like with your cell phone in a big stadium. When there are too many people around, it's hell!
-also it won't work well when you're too far away from cell infrastructure (antennas etc...). Like your cell phone sometimes you don't get enough "bars" to connect in the country, mountains, beach, far away from the towns or roads

Then one must also understand that "bonding" is a client/server technology, meaning if you have the encoder, you must also have at least "access" to a server. You cannot stream directly to Youtube for instance. You MUST stream to a DMNG server which can then re-stream to your final destination. But sometimes it's not so easy because the streaming is adaptive depending on bandwidth. For example you want to stream 720p to youtube but your DMNG has variable encoding preset depending on bandwidth which will reduce your stream to SD sometimes. Youtube may stop the stream if your signal doesn't match its initial configuration (720p). So it's risky.

Also DMNG units are encoders. You must feed them with an uncompressed signal through SDI or HDMI

Aviwest solutions are designed for Newsgathering for Broadcast TV. The TV owns the server, many DMNG units for reporters and OBvans and usually they use the SDI outputs to ingest the remote signals in their workflow. Natively it handles interlaced signals 50i/60i (even if they now support progressive by elimiting one frame)

So if you want to use bonded solutions (there are other companies like LiveU, Mushroomnetworks, Dejero, TVU, etc...) you got to know this.
Make sure you have a DMNG unit AND a server (you may rent them both but you still need a guy to manage the server and have high bandwidth for it)

If your gig production is for TV then the TV may already have a bonding technology platform. Contact them to know which one.
If not you may have to provide them with a server in their facilities so that they can handle the transmissions

$1500 a week is for the unit only. If you need a server rental, it's more like $2200/2500 the week (at least here in France)

But remember I wouldn't go for bonding in a festival with more than 1000 people around. A satellite uplink is more reliable as you do not share the bandwidth.
Also it's pretty easy nowadays to have a fiber installed for a few days (telcos will charge for a month anyway) for a live event.

@DWAM

Thank you for the additional information. The rental price is about the same here because with the shipping and server software option it's about another $1000.

I watched some of your production with Speedify. How many modems were used and were they from different providers? I tried Speedify but couldn't get it to work with two (2) AT&T 4G modems.

What about a wifi configuration? I have seen the new fast bandwidth long range modems ...some up to 5 miles,,,,,any input is much appreciated

DWAM, when the stream has been de-bonded by the DMNG server, is it possible to take the stream into vMix as an input? The DMNG server and vMix are setup at two different locations. They are relatively close (300 km from each other) and both on strong networks.

Oh, I have a lot of experience with cell bonding. I have switched (and am the main tech guy) over 40 broadcasts using Teradek Bond 2s. They are sporting events that take place in large parks where there is no way I can run economically run cabling. We are a very small operation.

Cell bonding is a mixed bag. We have come to the determination that in testing we like to see at least 3mb up for a particular provider. We then have at least 3 modems for that provider and push our a 4.5 meg stream. If the signal strength is a lot better, we will sometimes bump our stream up to 6 or 8. We have noticed at larger events that if there are a bunch of people, we will run into the occasional bandwidth issue. But overall we are very happy with the results over the past few years.

PS. I have 2 Teradek Bond 2s for sale pretty cheap if anyone is interested, BARELY used. Just PM me.