6G The Use of Telephony Services : Technical Issues
- Careful consideration must be given to the technical issues surrounding the use of PRS. All parties involved at the production company, broadcaster and service provider must liaise closely on arrangements for the opening and closing of lines and the winner selection or vote counting process.
- Sufficient provision must be made for the occurrence of technical problems. Procedures must be in place and approved by the broadcaster in advance of transmission to ensure that the possibility of disadvantage to members of the public is reasonably minimised. Measures to deal with the following non-exhaustive list of eventualities must be implemented:
- Complete failure of one or more PRS before, after, and/or during viewer participation;
- Partial failure or unavailability of one or more PRS during viewer participation;
- Latency in SMS delivery;
- Red Button users dropping their connection before the necessary information is transferred.
- Adequate arrangements for the transmission, reception, and processing of votes, entries, or other responses must be in place and approved in advance by the broadcaster. This will involve discussions between you and the broadcaster, service provider, network operators, and aggregators, particularly in relation to the expected size of audience for the programme and anticipated level of demand and use of the PRS.