Fast and Reliable Internet = Key Element to Hosting Virtual Awards
An awards ceremony happens once, and a winner’s speech cannot be re-shot: if the host or a nominee freezes on camera, that is the version everybody remembers. The cause is almost always one internet connection, at one end of the broadcast, that cannot hold its upload steady for two hours.
Speedify is an app that runs a stream over several internet connections at the same time, hotel Wi-Fi plus 4G/5G cellular for instance, so one shaky connection cannot stop the ceremony. Speedify needs two or more internet connections for this. On a single connection, Speedify works as an encrypted VPN and cannot stop that connection from dropping. The rest of this article explains why award nights lean so hard on internet connections and how to plan yours with Speedify so nobody freezes mid-speech.
Speedify keeps the stream up when the venue internet does not
Even the biggest award shows have run virtual or hybrid ceremonies, including:
When an award show goes virtual, the worst enemy for its organizers is slow and unreliable internet.
In today’s next normal, when you’re hosting a virtual award ceremony, you need to plan for a lot of things. But fast and stable Internet is key among them. If the internet is slow or disconnects randomly, it will have a negative impact on your virtual event. Without solid Internet connectivity, it all goes to pieces. You need it as air on all fronts: hosts, prize winners and virtual attendees.
Essential Tip for a Successful Virtual Award Ceremony: Get the Best Internet Out There!
Most virtual award ceremonies have one “central” place where the host is located. The host may share that location with the jury and / or some of the nominees. If that’s not possible, they join through live video streams over the internet. The 2021 Golden Globes used this format.
But there are also smaller award ceremonies and events where all participants (the host, the jury and the nominees) join remotely from their homes.
One thing is for sure: the attendees have to stream the video you’re broadcasting in order to watch the show.
Try to visualize all these live video feeds being moved back and forth, encoded, transcoded and so on. You don’t have to worry about that: it’s the job of dedicated streaming platforms and aggregators. Streamlabs, Telestream, Twitch and YouTube are just a few examples.
What you should focus on is getting the best Internet connectivity for all the elements involved in your virtual awards ceremony: hosts, jury and nominees at the least.
If you provide fast and stable Internet across your virtual event infrastructure, you will at least have the peace of mind that your side of the virtual event is NOT responsible for any stuttering, buffering or disconnects on the attendees’ part.
How to Get Fast and Stable Internet for Your Virtual Awards Ceremony
There are two rules of thumb here:
- get the best Internet available for the virtual event locations. Best = fastest, highest bandwidth for upload especially (!)
- use at least two Internet service providers at the same time. If one has issues or fails, you should failover to the other one(s).
Step 1: Get the Internet Plans
Keeping this in mind, the first thing you have to do is contact the local ISPs for each virtual location and ask about their business Internet plans. Those are generally better, and have associated guarantees and service level agreements.
Remember to get at least two Internet connections for each location.
Step 2: Combine Internet Connections for Speed and Stability
… using hardware link aggregation
To use multiple internet connections at once, you can get dedicated hardware that combines connections, such as the devices from Peplink, LiveU or Mushroom Networks. These support plugging in multiple internet connections. Here’s what you need along with the hardware:
- pay to rent the equipment in each location of the virtual awards ceremony. That should set you back some thousands of dollars per location.
- get specialized engineers to manage and run that hardware. The companies that rent out this hardware generally send their own people and equipment for your event, which adds to the cost.
… using software link aggregation
If that sounds too complicated, the alternative is software that combines connections, right on each device that broadcasts live video. You install an app on a computer or a mobile device, and the device can combine all available connections:
- Wi-Fi and 4G/5G cellular on mobile devices
- Wired Ethernet, Wi-Fi, cellular and other types of connections on computers. As long as you have a network adapter for each connection, you’re good.
Software that combines connections is easier and cheaper to run, and it does not need a special setup. Speedify is one such link aggregation software option.
Speedify Makes Virtual Award Ceremonies Successful
How do you run a virtual award ceremony successfully? At the bare minimum, give the hosts, jury and nominees (speakers) software that combines internet connections. Attendees with slow, unreliable internet can use it too. Setup is simple: there is no need to rent dedicated equipment or sign contracts.
Speedify combines internet connections and also identifies audio and video streams, prioritizing streams over other traffic (quality of service, or QoS), so web browsing and software updates do not slow down your calls and live streams.
As a VPN that combines internet connections, Speedify acts like a power-up for your device. Instead of using a single internet connection at a time, Speedify lets your device use multiple connections simultaneously, so you get more upload bandwidth and more stable livestreams.
Paired with a dedicated speed server, Speedify routes your traffic through a server reserved for your team, with up to 1 Gbps and a static IP address.
Get rid of all the connectivity hassles that come with running a successful virtual award ceremony. Use Speedify!
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