Geneva, 18 January 2024 – A human error on a motorway construction site between Geneva and Lausanne would have cut a cable transmitting the RTS television signal at 10.12pm. Broadcasting of programs was resumed at 1.40am.
The two RTS television channels suffered a temporary interruption last night, beyond our control, between 10.12pm and 1.40am. The show Infrared could be broadcast in full. At present, hypotheses regarding the origin of the fault indicate that an incorrect shovel on a construction site on the A1 motorway between Geneva and Lausanne would have caused a serious accident on the fiber optic network that transports the television signal to the distribution point, located in the Zurich region. The operation of the antennas is based on a ring network throughout Switzerland which allows, through its redundant segments, to guarantee the continuity of transmission in the event of an interruption somewhere: the signal chooses the channel still available, passing to the other part of the continuous cycle. Last night both routes that were supposed to protect each other were unavailable at the same time.
Chronology
At 10.12pm the technical team at the transmission point located in Zurich immediately replaced the black stripe with the emergency one, while in Geneva it was immediately confirmed that the RTS instruments were not involved in the accident. Private channels also saw their signal cut, such as Léman Bleu and Carac. The Geneva-Zurich connection was called into question and teams were mobilized to restore the network with the supplier.
All our technical on-call services have been activated. In addition to television broadcasts, the streaming on Play RTS as well as various Internet access and computer applications have been cut. The radio antenna was able to continue transmitting because the Lausanne-Zurich connection worked without incident, as did the SRF and RSI signals.
We implemented a backup solution to redirect the two video signals to Zurich and then transfer them at 1:40 to the RTS 1 and RTS 2 antennas, which were powered again with the usual schedule after 3 hours and 28 minutes of interruption. Work was carried out on the IT applications during the night: initially scheduled for 5am, the service was finally restored at 2.20am. The RTS will analyze the accident with SSR and the interested parties in order to draw the appropriate conclusions.
Information to the public
From the first moments of the incident, RTS informed via social networks, information on rts.ch and a communication to the ATS, which disseminated a message to the Swiss media. RTS thanks everyone involved last night and apologizes to the public for the temporary interruption of the programmes.
2024-01-18 23:06:07
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