This article first appeared in News in the Channel magazine issue #38.
How to create strategic opportunities by integrating AV/IT network, by Richard Jonker, VP Marketing & Business Development, NETGEAR Enterprise.
The convergence of AV and IT networking has moved from industry aspiration to operational reality. For the channel, this represents more than a technical milestone. It creates new avenues for differentiation, recurring revenue and strategic influence with customers who expect seamless, enterprise-grade media experiences as part of their core digital infrastructure.
AV/IT convergence is often misunderstood as simply ‘running AV over the IT network.’ In practice, it demands the unification of two historically separate engineering cultures, one rooted in real-time media performance and predictable behaviour, the other optimised for scalability, interoperability and user-driven flexibility. For channel partners, enabling this positions them as trusted advisors guiding customers through a complex transition.
Traditional enterprise IT networking evolved through decades of standardisation, moving from token ring to Ethernet and IP-based connectivity. The priority was ensuring systems were resilient, worked seamlessly together and offered consistent performance.
AV spent most of its life in a protected analogue or point-to-point digital domain. HDMI, SDI and other direct-connect formats produced high-quality content but lacked scalability, manageability and integration with enterprise systems. Deployments were heavily room-centric, hands-on and difficult to replicate across sites.
The rise of AV over IP changed that. By adopting IP as its transport foundation, AV now offers features that IT teams and channel partners rely on such as remote management, centralised monitoring, software-driven updates and enterprise-grade security integration.
For channel partners, this shift transforms AV from project-based engagements into lifecycle-driven service models, making AV part of broader managed network, collaboration or digital workspace offerings.
While AV’s migration to IP is now well understood, its network behaviour still differs from typical IT workloads. Bandwidth is the most visible difference. A single uncompressed 4K video stream can consume nearly 10Gbps, whereas an hour-long Teams call uses about 2.25GB. Multiply that by cameras, displays, presentation sources and multi-room routing, and high-bandwidth flows can quickly saturate uplinks, especially in stacked switch architectures.
But bandwidth is only half the story. Real-time AV traffic is acutely sensitive to:
⏰ Latency: variations of just 2-3 milliseconds can introduce jitter, audio dropouts or lip-sync mismatches
⏰ Clock synchronisation: Many AV-over-IP systems rely on IEEE 1588 (PTP). Even small timing inconsistencies degrade playback quality
⏰ Traffic predictability: AV environments are static and deterministic; IT networks are dynamic and bursty. When combined without planning, these contrasting behaviours generate instability.
Another common pain point – and service opportunity – is multicast management. Most AV-over-IP platforms rely on multicast for efficient distribution, yet many IT-centred switching environments lack proper IGMP snooping or querier configuration. The result is unrestrained multicast flooding, unexplained packet loss, or degraded performance across unrelated network segments.
Channel partners that master multicast design and troubleshooting gain a strategic edge, as these issues often create friction between customer AV and IT teams.
Designing converged environments for reliability
To unlock the benefits of convergence, MSPs and integrators must design with AV’s requirements in mind. Key considerations include:
🔮 Non-blocking switch fabrics that can sustain high-bandwidth flows without introducing bottlenecks
🔮 Proper multicast configuration, including IGMP snooping, querier placement and VLAN scoping
🔮 Precision time synchronisation, ensuring PTP stability across the media transport environment
🔮 QoS policies tailored to real-time media rather than traditional IT workloads
🔮 Logical segmentation, typically using VLANs or Layer 3 boundaries, to balance predictability with enterprise integration
🔮 Clear change control, ensuring IT-driven network adjustments don’t inadvertently destabilise live AV systems.
Channel partners that formalise these design principles – and communicate them effectively to customer IT teams – position themselves as convergence experts rather than equipment suppliers.
MSPs also bring mature IT processes, security frameworks and SLA-driven operations to AV environments. This positions them to manage AV as a business-critical service, not just a room-based deployment.
Managing the converged network
Customers increasingly expect a ‘single pane of glass’ for monitoring across AV and IT domains. Channel partners are well positioned to provide this by integrating AV management tools with broader network and security platforms, and by offering remote monitoring or managed services that bridge traditional departmental silos.
Logical isolation combined with controlled routing allows AV networks to interact safely with enterprise services while maintaining the predictability that media requires. Out-of-band management can add further stability and reduce support risk.
All these capabilities can feed into recurring support agreements, managed AV/IT network offerings, or proactive service models that strengthen partner–customer relationships.
Collaboration as important as technology
While tools and platforms matter, the most successful convergence deployments share another trait: strong collaboration between AV and IT stakeholders. Integrators and MSPs play a vital role in facilitating that conversation, aligning expectations, validating performance and ensuring operational responsibilities are clearly defined before go-live.
For the channel, convergence is not just an engineering challenge. It is an opportunity to help customers deliver better hybrid collaboration, consistent user experiences, reduce support complexity and build more resilient digital workplaces, while opening the door to long-term service-driven revenue.
