Swift & Wowza bring streaming content to world’s isolated, forgotten locations

Swift and Wowza have teamed up to bring high-quality streaming to the most bandwidth-constrained and infrastructure-limited environments on Earth.

From Australian mining camps and offshore oil rigs to aged care homes and defense installations, Swift is now able to provide content delivery to places that were unreachable before. Using Wowza Streaming Engine at the heart of its platform, Swift has developed a highly resilient, edge-powered architecture that enables live and on-demand video streaming, even in places with less than 1Mbps of bandwidth and no on-site IT support.

Or, as Aidan Sommerville, COO, Swift Networks, claimed, “If a site has power, we can get them content.”

Operating in harsh, remote, and sensitive environments, Swift needed a platform that could deliver critical video services with minimal latency, zero downtime, and no reliance on the public internet. 

Finding that traditional streaming platforms simply could not handle the job, Swift deployed over 150 localised Wowza Streaming Engine instances directly on-site, creating a distributed, edge-based content delivery network (CDN) across Australia and beyond. This enables predictive content caching, adaptive bitrate delivery, and DVB-T integration, allowing content to reach thousands of concurrent users, even during peak loads.

Key innovations include an edge CDN with more than 150 Wowza deployments at network edge, predictive caching based on shift scheduled and viewing trends, hybrid streaming that combines IP-based streaming with legacy DVB-T networks, custom set-top boxes built for ease of use in aged care and remote sites, one-touch broadcasting that empowers non-technical staff to live stream messages, and remote management supported by a full managed, ISO 27001-certified infrastructure. 

While most of the industry focuses on high-speed urban markets, Swift and Wowza are committed to content inclusion and reaching communities often overlooked by traditional platforms.

Alex Gammelgard, VP of Marketing, Wowza, added, “We’re not just streaming content. We’re delivering connection, mental health resources, and community to places the internet forgot.”