PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Apr 5, 2025--
NEP Group, the leading media services provider for sports and entertainment worldwide, has announced that its award-winning TFC broadcast orchestration platform, used in NEP facilities supporting the biggest productions around the world, is now available as a service to be used in any broadcast facility across the industry. TFC serves as an all-in-one platform tying together hardware and software from multiple vendors into one interface, simplifying control, automating tasks and standardizing workflows.
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The TFC platform was originally built by NEP engineers to solve their own challenges around simplifying IP in a broadcast environment, and over the past few years it has become the company’s trusted IP 2110 management system. The platform’s proven track record includes supporting some of the industry’s biggest events and premier broadcasters including the Super Bowl, the PGA TOUR, The Masters Tournament, 2024’s global sporting event in Paris, Seven Network Australia, the World Cup and many other major productions across the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia.
“Today, TFC is integrated across our NEP facilities worldwide, including our broadcast compounds and NEP Production Hubs. It’s become a solution our customers trust and depend on to deliver the biggest events to their audiences. We’ve learned so much over the years, and now we’re very excited to take this next step in the technology’s evolution by making TFC available as a scalable service partnership,” said Soames Treffry, President, NEP Australia, New Zealand and Japan.
"TFC can now be used by any broadcaster, rightsholder, league, federation, or sports and entertainment producer. The platform is also technology agnostic, giving customers the power of choice when it comes to choosing multiple vendors to support a particular show, and the service is always backed by our 24/7 global engineering support.
“TFC has been a major part of NEP’s vision and innovation story for a long time. With this new wide-scale offering we’re confident the platform will continue to drive meaningful transformation by delivering the reliability and innovation the broadcast industry demands.”
TFC Delivers Multiple Functions, Provides Unique Benefits to Customers
TFC is an all-in-one platform, offering key functions that solve challenges and create opportunities for engineering and production teams, including: broadcast control, software-defined networking (SDN), real-time monitoring, and unmatched 24/7, 365 global tech support.
As a broadcast control platform, TFC ties together multi-vendor hardware and software, simplifying what is commonly a complex IP 2110 management process requiring deep IP expertise. TFC simplifies this workflow by providing a user-friendly, intuitive touch-screen experience for any operator.
As a purpose-built SDN, TFC is designed exclusively for broadcast environments, with no extra configuration required, and with real-time monitoring and alerts, engineering teams are able to stay ahead of challenges with the platform providing instant alerts and updates on network health, uptime, latency and device status.
A Platform Built for Working in an IP Environment
NEP’s TFC platform is for customers experiencing challenges managing IP, those who don’t have in-house network engineering expertise, or customers migrating from traditional baseband environments to using IP, software and cloud production. TFC’s security layer is also a key component and therefore a solution for any highly visible media platform or critical project.
“TFC has completely changed the way engineering and production teams are able to manage many different layers of hardware and software on a major show site or in a production facility. The platform takes something very complex in our industry and simplifies it for our operators, allowing our producers and creators to focus on their number one goal of delivering amazing content to our viewers and fans,” said Michael Raimondo, Vice President of Broadcast Technology for the PGA TOUR.
With its scalability, TFC can support any major sporting event, rightsholder, sports league or federation, entertainment production, news facility, national broadcaster or major television producer or streamer, and it is available today as a licensed software solution.
TFC is part of NEP Group’s full range of global media services, which includes industry-leading mobile units, specialty capture solutions, equipment rentals, connectivity, studios and more. Visit nepgroup.com to learn more about NEP’s global production ecosystem.
About NEP
NEP is the world’s most trusted media services partner in live sports and entertainment. With a worldwide network of experts, cutting-edge technology, and expansive portfolio of customer-driven, innovative solutions, we empower our customers to tell their stories in breakthrough ways.
Headquartered in the United States with operations in 25 countries, we’ve supported thousands of major productions and events on every continent with excellence and reliability. See how we bring content to life at nepgroup.com.
NEP's TFC broadcast platform supporting a global sporting event in Paris during the summer of 2024.
LONDON (AP) — Planning an international trip? Travelers should prepare for the possibility of extra scrutiny of their phones when crossing borders, especially when entering the United States.
The Canadian government warned travelers in a recent travel advisory that U.S. border agents are entitled to search your electronic devices and “don’t need to provide a reason when requesting a password to open your device.”
Some recent cases have made travelers nervous about their privacy, such as when a Brown University professor with a U.S. visa was deported to Lebanon after border agents found a photo of Hezbollah’s leader on her phone.
“While 100% privacy may be impossible in these situations, there are a few things you can easily do that make it much harder for someone to see your private data even with physical access to your device,” said Patricia Egger, head of security at encrypted service Proton Mail.
Here are tips on protecting your device privacy while travelling:
Experts say the best strategy is to reduce the amount of information you’re carrying while traveling.
If possible, leave your phone at home. If you need one on your trip, borrow a tactic used by corporate executives looking to avoid hackers: get a temporary or “burner” device. It can contain just the information you need for your trip. Download anything else from the cloud when you need it.
If you have to bring your phone or laptop, upload sensitive information to a cloud storage service that uses end-to-end encryption, then delete the originals from your device.
Also, encrypt your phone or laptop’s storage drive and protect it with a strong password. Be aware this is different from merely having a device passcode lock, which is more easily cracked, or the end-to-end encryption on your favorite communication platforms.
Turn off fingerprint or facial recognition features and use the PIN or passcode instead.
There are two kinds of searches, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection website.
In a basic search, an officer scrolls through your phone’s photos, emails, apps and files. No suspicion of wrongdoing is needed to conduct this type of search.
In an advanced search, the contents of your device could be copied for analysis. But a senior manager needs to sign off and there needs to be “reasonable suspicion” of a legal violation, except if there’s any concern for national security, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).
“It’s hard to say,” says Sophia Cope, senior staff attorney at the EFF, which offers an extensive online guide to border privacy. Warrants are not needed to inspect devices belonging to anyone entering the country.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents carried out a total of more than 47,000 electronic device searches last year, up tenfold from a decade ago.
Basic searches “can be for no reason at all, totally random, or based on a mere hunch about someone – maybe based on how they look or an answer they gave to a preliminary question,” said Cope.
Travel history can also be relevant, for example, if a traveler originates from someplace where terrorism, drug trafficking, or child sex tourism is common, she said. Border agents can also search devices “at the behest” of other agencies like the FBI or if they’re associated with someone else of interest, such as a journalist’s source, a business associate or a family member.
Best to power off your devices when you touch down.
Under current policy, U.S. border agents are only allowed to look at information stored on the device, and not anything that’s kept in the cloud. So if you have to leave your phone on, make sure it’s kept in airplane mode or otherwise disconnected from the internet by Wi-Fi or cellular data.
“Before crossing the border, put your device in airplane mode to ensure remote files don’t get downloaded accidentally,” the Canadian government warns.
But keep in mind there might be cached data that still remains on your phone, such as files in the trash that haven’t been emptied.
American citizens can’t be denied entry to the United States for refusing to consent to device searches. The same should apply to lawful permanent residents such as green card holders, the American Civil Liberties Union says.
But agents can make things difficult if they’re refused. Travelers could be questioned, detained temporarily or have their devices seized and not returned for days or even weeks, rights groups say.
Foreign travelers could be turned back if they say no.
If you’re forced to unlock your device, Egger advises that “where you can, log in yourself rather than divulging any PINs or passwords, and if forced to share passwords, change them as soon as you can.”
Experts say the reason you should not use your device’s fingerprint or facial recognition feature is that it’s easier to compel you to unlock your device with biometrics. A border agent could simply hold your phone up to your face or force you to press your finger onto your device. There are also fears that police could use fingerprints stored on government databases.
Powering off your devices is another way to protect against sophisticated attacks in case you don’t consent to a search.
Most modern phones and some laptops encrypt their data using a strong cryptographic keys only accessible when the user unlocks it with the passcode, said Will Greenberg, the EFF’s senior staff technologist.
If the device is locked but not turned off, the key remains loaded on the device’s memory. Powerful hacking tools made by companies like Cellebrite can recover the key and decipher the data.
But if the device is off, the key is unloaded and can’t be accessed until it’s turned on again and unlocked with the passcode.
“This is why a border agent can’t simply turn a device on to use a tool like Cellebrite,” Greenberg said.
To be on the safe side, delete your social media apps and reinstall them later. Even though content is mainly stored on a social media company’s servers, Cope says some posts or images might remain on your phone’s memory cache and therefore viewable even in airplane mode.
It’s not just phones and laptops. Digital cameras, smartwatches, tablets, external hard drives and other electronic devices can be searched.
Some tactics might backfire. If you’re tempted to completely wipe your phone or laptop hard drive before you travel, experts warn it could raise scrutiny.
“If detected by a border agent, the fact that you wiped your hard drive may prompt the agent to ask why you did so,” the EFF’s guide says. “Even traveling without devices or data that most travelers typically have could attract suspicion and questions.”
Also don’t try to hide information on your device, because border agents could find out, the group says. “Lying to border agents can be a serious crime, and the agents may take a very broad view of what constitutes lying,” it says.
Check local laws of your destination before you travel. For example, Britain’s counterterrorism law allows police to demand that people passing through the country’s border hand over devices along with passwords and PINs. If they refuse, they can be charged with terrorism.
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FILE - Vehicles wait in line to cross the border into the United States at the San Ysidro Port of Entry, Tuesday, March 18, 2025, in Tijuana, Mexico. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File)
