Cellhire won “Best Connectivity Solution” at Comms Business Awards 2025, July 17th, for its “Count Cam” system, a streamlined solution for live broadcasting deployed nationwide for the UK General Election in 2024.
The Count Cam cameras, using Cellhire’s multi-network IoT SIMs in iPhones, enabled the BBC to live stream UK General Election counts and results to millions of viewers, helping the corporation to overcome the cost and logistical problems of broadcasting from 390 vote counting locations across the UK during the night of July 4th-5th.
Pre-configured iPhone kits
Cellhire UK Managing Director, Matt Bennett, said, “We’re very honored to win this award. Our multi-network IoT SIM cards allowed the Count Cams to remain connected, always, to the best available UK mobile network. They ensured extensive geographic coverage and reduced the chance of any downtime to close to zero. In fact, we had no down time. It was a very smooth operation, overseen by our dedicated staff throughout.”
Streams from the Count Cam packages were transmitted to a virtual screen in the BBC TV studio, with individual streams accessible via iPlayer and the BBC’s online constituency pages. Cellhire pre-configured iPhone kits to provide, with the Count Cams, a cost-effective alternative to deploying full news crews, and enable a fast and efficient setup of broadcast-quality live feeds. The user-friendly design and simple instructions meant that anyone could set up and operate the kits.
