Verizon is deploying a portable private 5G network just for FOX fans

To help with the filming of the second season of the FOX TV show "Extracted", Verizon comes to the rescue with a portable private 5G network.

It's in the wilderness

Fans of the show know that 12 participants are dropped alone deep into the Canadian wilderness. Family members watch them survive via a live camera feed and biometric data.

The way a player leaves is when one of their family members decides that they've had enough already. They press the iconic “Extract” button and the player is "saved".


As you can imagine, providing live video footage to the people back in the studio is not a walk in the park, given that the area of the filming is one where connectivity is extremely limited.

In season two, FOX filmed across four square miles of remote wilderness. They needed wireless connections for 25 video feeds and 20 communication devices in difficult terrain.

Endless hours of footage

Of course, that's not the end of it. The production team also had to handle large volumes of data and the challenge of manually organizing more than 100,000 hours of continuously recorded footage, creating a major bottleneck in post-production.

If you've ever tried to edit a single video from several 5-minute clips – say, from a drone, you know how brutal it would be to go through 100,000 hours of video… even for a big team.

Hence, the collaboration with Verizon

To fix the connectivity problem, Verizon set up a portable private 5G network across the area. The idea was to come up with a fast, secure coverage separate from public networks. This helped cameras and communication devices work smoothly with low delay.

To make post-production easier, Verizon tested its Edge AI platform. Since filming ran 24/7, the system used computer vision to find clips with contestants and added timestamps and short summaries.

This saved time during editing. Verizon also tested a live data API that tracked contestants and camera crews in real time on a map. This let the director see where everyone was, even from miles away.

Telcos evolve

Like all other carriers, Verizon is expanding beyond basic connectivity. Projects like this show how telecom companies are moving into areas like media production and AI.

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