Direct Line Around Chinese Censors

SAY YOU'RE SETTING UP SHOP in a country known for its censoring of information. If that's your remit, you might consider buying a trunk-sized bundle of ISDN lines. Dutch commercial broadcaster Radio 538 has done that, enabling it to broadcasting live from the Beijing Olympic games, defying both the Chinese censors and the IOC. The only Dutch broadcaster registered to provide coverage from Beijing during the Olympics is public broadcaster NOS, which is the Olympic rights holder. But Radio 538 decided to broadcast its breakfast show live from the Chinese capital. You have to be registered to broadcast, and your output must port through the  Olympic Broadcast Centre, where censors can impose a transmission delay. That sucks when you're trying to hold a conversation with a live presenter back home. Radio 538 still has a delay of around one second, but its team has avoided the Broadcast Centre by hiring blocks of expensive ISDN phone lines.  They rotate between numbers--using at least ten new numbers every day--confounding Chinese censors. They use smart switches that can connect over an open ISDN line once an operating line appears to be cut. After the first two days, the connection with Beijing has been down for only 20 minutes on one day.

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Transmission 1 -- "Dutch Radio Station Avoiding Chinese Censors"

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