How one piece of equipment took down the ABC this week
Those hoping to tune into the measured tones of Sally Sara on Radio National last Monday morning were greeted with radio silence.
A number of the ABC’s radio and audio services were knocked off air for hours on Monday, and the culprit was, according to the broadcaster, “the core router”.
Of course, this prompted a number of follow up questions. The router was apparently knocked out because of an update, so somone’s had a bad week. But more to the point: “What is a core router?” and “How can one piece of equipment have the power to take down an entire radio network?”
We turned to a very helpful radio technician who works for one of the major networks, and therefore would like to remain anonymous.
The ABC’s core router looks nothing like this (Midjourney)
Mumbrella asked them to explain it in layman’s terms.
“If you think of the entire ABC network like a big road system, the core router is like a main traffic controller or highway intersection in the middle of this road system.”
The controller directs the network traffic — emails, audio files, websites — to where they need to go.
It is one of the most crucial point of the network, because “everything passes through it at some point.”
If it fails, computers, servers and other devices cannot communicate with each other, and chaos reigns.
“At a radio station, the audio systems rely on the network to pull the music, ads, or shows from servers,” our experts said. “Without the core router working, that audio can’t get through, meaning no audio gets played or transmitted to listeners.”
In other words: radio silence.
In addition, staff might lose internet access, shared folders, and key systems. Even if backup systems are in place, if they’re not properly configured, the network can still fail.
In short: “The core router is like the main switchboard connecting everything. If it fails, it’s like pulling out the plug on the entire network – things can grind to a halt, including playing audio to the public and letting staff do their jobs.”
This is why the ABC went down on Monday morning. And, now you know. Happy routing!
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