Arqiva (formerly NTL Broadcast) provides provides broadcast transmission, satellite and media solutions, public safety communications, wireless and other network services in the UK. Its customers include all major UK commercial television and radio broadcasters, the leading mobile wireless operators, and public safety organisations such as the police, fire and ambulance services.
Arqiva's Transmitter Master Control (TMC) System is used to control Arqiva's television and radio transmitters and satellite uplinks. It is a SCADA system (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) which monitors events in real time and reports status and performance information to Arqiva's Broadcast control room at Emley Moor and its Teleport at Crawley Court. It is a mission critical system for Arqiva.
Arqiva TMC was written for the Independent Broadcasting Authority by a third party software supplier and subsequently passed over to Arqiva. When the authors of the system later elected to discontinue support, Arqiva approached SciSys who agreed to provide support.
As the system is mature and stable it does not require frequent support. However the criticality of the system means that Arqiva needs access to SciSys' support engineers at short notice in the event of problems. Arqiva pays a retainer to ensure that trained support staff are available to deal with problems with the system, together with an allowance for a number of days effort for support issues or minor enhancements as determined by Arqiva.
Arqiva TMC is written in PASCAL and VAX macros and runs on DEC VAX equipment.
