Every month, iHeartMedia reaches nine out of 10 Americans through its broadcast radio assets, and even more through its iHeartRadio streaming service, podcasts, and other platforms. Behind that reach is one of the largest audio distribution networks in the country, connecting more than 150 studios and roughly 1,000 transmitter sites that deliver content to listeners in their cars, at home, at work, and on their devices.
Whether they’re catching breaking news during a morning commute, streaming a favorite radio personality at home, or relying on severe weather updates in real time, listeners expect the content to be there the moment they need it.
As iHeartMedia prepared to modernize connectivity across more than 1,200 locations nationwide, the company faced a critical question: How do you introduce new technology without risking the reliability listeners depend on every day?
To answer that question, iHeartMedia turned to the AT&T Proof of Concept (PoC) Labs™, where organizations can evaluate how new technologies will perform in realistic environments before deploying them at scale and with confidence.
The Challenge: Making a Critical Technology Decision with Certainty
For many businesses, a brief network interruption may be inconvenient, but for iHeartMedia, it has the potential to affect the delivery of content listeners rely on.
“Delivering IP audio across our nationwide network with 99.999% reliability is a core requirement,” said Steve George, EVP of engineering & systems at iHeartMedia. “Unlike many enterprises, our product is delivered in real time. We operate 24/7 with extremely low tolerance for interruptions, so our network must continuously adapt and recover from issues without disrupting the listener experience. Otherwise, poor performance or outages can directly impact audience engagement, brand trust, and revenue.”
As bandwidth demands increased and media consumption continued to evolve, iHeartMedia began evaluating a move to a modern Software-Defined Wide Area Network (SD-WAN) architecture. The company needed a solution that could support multiple network connections, application prioritization, and seamless failover across its nationwide footprint.
Network resiliency goes beyond operational metrics at iHeartMedia. It's directly tied to the listener experience and the company's ability to deliver news and entertainment.
Making a critical network decision without validation wasn’t enough, especially while operating a network across hundreds of locations. iHeartMedia needed proof.
The Solution: Testing Technology Against Real-World Conditions
Rather than relying solely on vendor presentations, iHeartMedia worked with the AT&T PoC Labs to evaluate multiple SD-WAN platforms under identical conditions using its own application and traffic patterns. The objective was to understand how each solution would support the advanced connectivity required for iHeartMedia's performance, resiliency, and operational requirements before making a significant investment.
“With a traditional demo, the vendor controls the story. In the AT&T PoC Labs, we were able to control the testing parameters and validate performance against our own success criteria,” said Steve. “Having all solutions tested under the same conditions allowed us to understand how each SD-WAN platform would perform under real-world failure scenarios and whether it could meet the unique requirements of large-scale audio transport. The labs gave us confidence that our decision was based on measurable performance and business outcomes rather than assumptions.”
What made the engagement unique was how the team mimicked iHeartMedia’s network environment, helping the company evaluate how technology would perform under the conditions required to support critical operations at scale. Instead of evaluating generic applications, iHeartMedia brought its own audio transport technologies and use cases into the lab. Working alongside engineers in the labs, the team recreated key aspects of its production network and evaluated how each platform responded under realistic conditions.
The testing included:
- Circuit failover scenarios
- High-latency and high-jitter network conditions
- Quality of Service (QoS) validation
- Application prioritization testing
By testing multiple platforms under identical conditions, iHeartMedia gained an objective view of how each option responded when network performance was disrupted and whether audio streams could continue without interruption.
Most importantly, the testing reflected iHeartMedia's actual business requirements rather than generic use cases.
The labs provided a data-driven evaluation that gave stakeholders confidence they were making the right decision for the long term.
The Impact: Replacing Assumptions with Confidence
The greatest value for iHeartMedia was certainty around a critical technology investment.
By validating performance before deployment, the company was able to make an informed decision based on measurable results rather than vendor promises. The result is stronger network resiliency, improved operational flexibility, and greater confidence that its connectivity can support listeners when it matters most.
That confidence matters when your network supports hundreds of locations and helps deliver content to millions of listeners each month.
For organizations facing major technology decisions, Steve believes the lesson is simple: “Don't just evaluate features. Test the technology against your actual business requirements and failure scenarios. The insights we gained in the AT&T PoC Labs made the difference between a good decision and the right decision.”
That's the value the AT&T PoC Labs has delivered for customers over the past 30 years by helping organizations validate technology in realistic environments. The labs connect them with confidence to make informed decisions, helping ensure new solutions can perform reliably before deployment.
The AT&T Proof of Concept Labs can help organizations explore networking, mobility, cloud, voice, and security capabilities individually or as part of an end-to-end architecture, helping teams build a more informed path to deployment. With labs across the country and the ability to bring testing environments directly to customer facilities, AT&T helps organizations better understand how advanced connectivity enables new services, experiences, and technologies reliably at scale before deployment.
Learn more about the AT&T PoC Labs and connect with our team
