Is 10Gb Internet Right for Independent TV Production?

Moving fast is the norm for TV and Film productions. When things change, directors and producers need production internet that can keep up.

So you might be tempted to think that if you could get a really, really fast internet connection to your office or studio - say, 10Gb/s -  it would be worth having, right? Well, we think not. Here’s why:

• You won’t really use it

Think about it: unless you’re serving a thousand workstations with office internet, you will almost never use the full capacity of your 10Gb/s uplink. In fact if you’re solely using it to send footage, you’ll probably end up using significantly less than 0.1% of that monthly capacity (turns out the monthly capacity of 10Gb internet is around 2.8 petabytes, if you’re using that much then congratulations). You’ll still pay for 100% though..!

• Batteries not included

A 10Gb/s leased line is just that. You won’t get a router (£3k - £5k), switching (£1k - £2k), new cable infrastructure (£sky’s the limit), 10Gb interfaces for your machines, etc. and on and on. Not to mention, you can’t even get to those speeds without some transfer acceleration software - that’s another £10k - £20k a year subscription. Plus even if you’re the most tech savvy, super-post-production-nerd kind of person, you will probably not want to configure and administer all this new gear, so throw in an IT management company too - £1k - 5k a month.

• Cost

It’s a hefty cost - not just in money, but time. You could be waiting up to a year just for your line to be installed and brought into service. Plus, installation costs of leased lines in London are very high, unless you’re exceedingly lucky to have one in your building already. And you could be paying thousands of pounds a month for the privilege. On top of everything above.

So - how are you going to upload terabytes of rushes if you’re not Disney? We think the most practical and cost-effective option is a file transfer company. And that’s exactly what Swift.london does - what a coincidence!

But seriously. Using a service like ours gives you price certainty for your end client - you can see all our prices up front and quote with confidence, instead of guessing how much your infrastructure costs will have to be divided up this year. And you can wow your client with major-production-style transfer speed, without the major price. And you save on the most important production resource - sanity! Just book and leave it with us - we’ll make it all happen while you do something more important..

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