Case Study: NEP UK achieves scalable, ultra-low-latency UHD broadcasting from modular SMPTE ST 2110 OB trucks with Arista Networks

NEP UK selects Arista as foundation for SMPTE ST 2110 modular OB trucks to deliver UHD content from world’s largest events

NEP UK, a global leader in outside broadcast services, needed to deliver large-scale UHD coverage for premier live events and to build two new modular IP-capable OB trucks, Venus and Ceres. The challenge was to replace traditional SDI limits with a scalable, low-latency SMPTE ST 2110 IP backbone that would support many uncompressed UHD streams, flexible “building‑block” linking of trucks and flyaways, and simple reconfiguration of modular processing units.

NEP UK selected Arista (7500 series in trucks, 7280 in the Wimbledon Broadcast Centre, and Arista EOS) to provide a lossless, deterministic network delivering predictable latency (as low as 3.5 µs), up to 28.8 Tbps switching capacity per truck (supporting the equivalent of >2,000 UHD streams), efficient power use and robust multicast and redundancy (including SMPTE ST 2022‑7). The Arista-based design enabled modular truck linking, enhanced resiliency, and fast technical support, and successfully debuted in combined operation at Wimbledon, validating the scalable, high-performance IP approach.

NEP UK

Rob Newton

Director of Engineering and Technology