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What is SoundSystem Live?
SoundSystem Live delivers your venue's live audio to every fan's own phone and earbuds in real time, in step with the action on the field. Each fan receives a circuit, a direct managed connection for every fan, through Synchronous Narrowcasting on the Virtual Audio Backbone, Backbone Broadcast's cloud-native audio fabric. Fans choose the authorized feeds they want: the main broadcast, native-language commentary, translations, descriptive audio, or special programming. SoundSy
Richard Cerny
Will the radio call match the play in front of me?
Yes. Live play-by-play arrives in under 300 milliseconds typical and under 500 milliseconds specified, subject to source and network conditions. Every listener on a channel hears the same instant, phone to phone and section to section.
Richard Cerny
What do we have to buy, and how soon can we go live?
Nothing, and by your next event. Zero hardware costs, no CapEx: no venue servers, transmitters, or receivers to buy, install, refresh, or retire. You send us the audio you already produce, we provision the rest from the cloud, and fans bring their own phones and earbuds. We work with what you already have.
Richard Cerny
What happens when 70,000 people hit the Wi-Fi at halftime?
SoundSystem Live bonds Wi-Fi and 5G. On iPhone, each circuit travels over both paths at the same time, so one network can falter while the audio carries on; Android devices currently use one path at a time. Bonding delivers roughly 200 times the reliability of Wi-Fi alone or 5G alone. Each circuit uses about 30 kbps, light enough to stay clear of peak-time congestion. Behind it, hot standby servers on opposite sides of the United States, tested in live conditions, pair with t
Richard Cerny
How does it sound?
Clear, even when the crowd roars. SoundSystem Live delivers 48 kHz, high-quality Opus audio directly to fans' earbuds, preserving the clarity and detail of live commentary. Fans follow the action without depending on distant loudspeakers or straining to hear a broadcast over the surrounding crowd.
Richard Cerny
Why is an individual circuit to each phone better than a fast streaming signal?
A streaming signal travels as best-effort HTTP segments, and each listener's playback lands wherever their network path, buffer, and phone put it, drifting further apart as the game goes on. SoundSystem Live runs a stateful RTP session for each fan, with drift-free timestamps, adaptive jitter control, and continuous synchronization, so every listener on a channel hears the same instant. Each circuit is known, managed, and confirmed for the life of the session. A CDN can tell
Richard Cerny
Can we offer more than one channel?
As many as you want: home radio call, Spanish broadcast, additional languages, assistive listening, in-venue PA, a women's broadcast, a premium mix for suites. Every fan gets a personal circuit to the team's audio fabric, with access to every channel the team offers. Channels run independently, each carrying its own content, with no spectrum license and no limit on how many you run.
Richard Cerny
Can we serve fans in other languages?
Yes, with native-language announcers, AI translation, or both operating together. AI-powered translation enables programming in 100+ languages, with a modest additional processing delay for translation. SoundSystem Live's ultra-low-latency audio delivery remains unchanged. Multiple languages can run at once, depending on translation-service capacity and configuration. A team can start with a translated feed, discover an audience, and then decide whether to build a dedicated n
Richard Cerny
How does SoundSystem Live support accessibility?
SoundSystem Live supports assistive listening for Blind, Low Vision, and Hard of Hearing fans, delivered as a circuit to each fan's own phone and earbuds. No receivers to distribute, charge, or clean, and no existing ADA system required. Venues can produce dedicated descriptive audio on a separate Backbone production station, or carry a channel compatible with and fed by the venue's existing ADA assistive listening system.
Richard Cerny
Can fans listen at road games, or from outside our market?
Yes. The geofence covers the venue and its immediate surroundings and retargets from the cloud, so your traveling fans hear your call in the visiting venue with nothing to pack. Beyond the venue, a station can reach fans in other markets where rights permit, with certain live programs geographically restricted and independently licensed programming distributed worldwide at other times.
Richard Cerny
Is this only for sports?
SoundSystem Live serves concerts, theme parks, conferences, festivals, and any live event where an audience wants the audio in their ears, scaling to 100,000 or more simultaneous listeners.
Richard Cerny
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Tel: +1 844-422-2526
Westborough, MA
© 2026 Backbone Networks Corporation
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