NTP Technology has completed the first delivery of a digital audio switching and routing system for Italian state broadcaster RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana. The first system will be installed at in the Campobasso region in Italy. Three additional systems will be installed later this year at RAI's regional stations in Bolzano, Palermo and Consenza.

"RAI has been using NTP routing systems for the past 20 years," comments NTP Technology Sales Director Mikael Vest. "A new 625 main router system was recently installed as part of a major upgrade at the master control facilities in Via Asiago and Saxa Rubra, Rome. NTP is very pleased that is routing systems have being chosen for the regional stations as well”.

RAI Radio placed the contract with NTP's Italian distributor, Comteck Video Enterprise (CVE). CVE will provide customer support from its offices in Rome and Milan.

The systems to be installed comprise single and dual frame 625 systems equipped with analog and digital AES3 interfaces. Each installation has the capability of being expanded to a total of 256 input and output channels. All systems incorporate NTP's RCCoreV3 Router Control System and are operated via a dedicated user interface developed by NTP specially for the RAI studios. NTP's 625 digital audio router is a modular system based on the 625-800  with and 19 inch chassis which houses up to 18 plug-in modules configured as 5 RU high hot-swappable cards. Each chassis is scalable up to 2048 x 2048 crosspoints and can accommodate a redundant power supply and redundant frame controller. The supporting range of modules includes a sampling-rate converter, analogue in/out, AES/EBU in/out, microphone input, MADI interfaces, CPU/clock, QNX-based frame controller, optical interfaces and TDM interfaces. All in/out cards incorporate gain, filtering, summing, phase, delay, compressor/limiter, level detection and phase detection. VMC660 software controls the router system in terms of crosspoints, scheduling and signal surveillance.

Italy’s public broadcasting system, RAI Radiotelevisione Italiana (www.rai.it) is the primary Italian radio and television service. RAI commenced transmissions in 1954 and now covers all of Italy as well as reaching many expatriate Italian communities. RAI has been a dominant force in the development, shaping and expansion of Italian culture within Italy and globally. RAI operates many television channels and radio stations, broadcasting analog terrestrial (until 2013) and digital terrestrial as well as via satellite and IPTV. The organisation is one of the 23 founding members of the European Broadcasting Union.