In Broadcast - February 2015 - 76

76

www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 5 - Issue 2 | February 2015

InMedia

Three Years Of Innovation
®
With Formula 1
Mehul Kapadia, Tata Communications'
Managing Director F1® Business, discusses
how Tata Communications is giving
Formula 1® the speed to lead...
Speed To Lead
This month, Tata Communications
celebrates three years as the Official
Connectivity Provider of Formula
1®. In 2012, Tata Communications
started working with Formula One
Management (FOM) to deliver worldclass connectivity to all Formula 1®
race locations, and to provide hosting
and content delivery services for
Formula1.com, which is accessed by
tens of millions of fans across the
globe during the race season.
Since then, Tata Communications has
increased connectivity speeds at each
race by a factor of ten. This is possible
thanks to Tata Communications'
wholly-owned subsea cable network,
the largest in the world, providing
connectivity to more than 240
countries and territories. This aligns
perfectly with Formula 1®, whose
races take place all over the world -
sometimes in remote and challenging
locations.
Tata
Communications'
robust and super-fast fibre optic ring
ensures full internet access at each
race event, as well as enabling live
data to be sent securely back to the UK
and straight onto Formula1.com. This
provides fans with content-rich web
experience day and night.
During race weekends, the Tata
Communications' team is always hard
at work. A vast amount of real-time
data is consumed by up to seven
million fans simultaneously in 188
countries. The Formula1.com website
typically sees huge spikes in visitor
numbers, with as much as 100 times
more traffic than normal over a race

Formula 1® races take
place all over the world

weekend, from a multitude of devices.
For FOM, there is no such thing as
service level agreement (SLA) and
coverage must be 100% at all times.
Through temporary MPLS circuits
and 14km of fibre optic cable at each
new location, Tata Communications
rolls out a full connectivity platform for
Formula 1®, including voice, data and
video services, the same that it would
in any city. Tata Communications
does this month by month at 19 race
locations, setting up the equivalent of
a city infrastructure in two days and
dismantling it in just three hours, a
process that would traditionally take
weeks.
Our superior connectivity is also
being used to the advantage of race
teams. In 2013, Tata Communications
signed a deal with the Mercedes AMG
Petronas F1® team to ensure track
connectivity from the Silver Arrow
cars to its UK headquarters. Tata
Communications is able to deliver
this three times faster, which allows
the engineers back at the factory
to make data-led decisions much
quicker. Ultimately, this can make
the difference between finishing first
or second on race day, giving the
Mercedes AMG Petronas F1® team a
speed advantage over its competitors.
Taking It To The Next Level
Tata Communications' complete endto-end solution allows the delivery of
the right set of services for everyone
involved - it's not just about providing
connectivity onsite to FOM and the
teams, we're now taking this to the
next level, working to
facilitate
broadcasting,
and improve the viewing
experience for the millions
of fans.
In order to bring a
richer experience to fans,
Tata
Communications
teamed up with the official
F1® broadcaster Chello
DMC, which distributes
to Dutch sports channel

Tata Communications is the Official Connectivity Provider of Formula 1®

Sport1, back in April. Through the
Tata Communications' network, six
high quality live video feeds from
19 races were aired on Sport1 last
season, which were viewed on multiple
devices, including TVs, tablets,
smartphones and laptops. The quality
and flexibility of the data transferred
via the Tata Communications network
made it possible for the broadcaster to
effectively monetise its rights, whilst
providing Dutch fans with unrivalled
coverage of the races.
Fostering Innovation
As part of this all-encompassing
approach, we have also worked
to foster a culture of innovation
amongst fans and usher in the next
stage of fan experience. One way we
decided to do this was by launching
the F1® Connectivity Innovation Prize,
tasking teams with solving real world
challenges for Formula 1® racing. The
competition ran in three stages and
had a selection of high profile judges,
including Formula 1® champion Lewis
Hamilton and Formula 1® commentator
Paddy Lowe. The goal: an exciting
vision for the future of Formula 1®,
improving viewer experience and
interactivity through technological
innovation and creative thinking.
The overall winners, a British team
of four, came up with a novel idea
for a digital archive to catalogue the
60,000 hours of historical Formula
1® footage, encouraging fans to
submit their 'greatest moments' for
compilation each week. This innovative
idea combined digital innovation and
creativity to bring about a solution that
takes the viewer experience and fan
engagement to a new level.

A 4K Future
Perhaps the biggest development
this year was the moment that we
delivered the first live 4K feed from
a Formula 1® event during a practice
session at the 2014 Singapore Grand
Prix. The live footage was delivered
from the tracks to the FOM Technical
HQ in Biggin Hill, and marked a turning
point in live broadcasting, showcasing
the future sports viewer experience,
which could well become standardised
over the next couple of years. This
was a huge milestone for the team,
demonstrating the quality and
feasibility of broadcasting in 4K using
fibre optic cable.
4K sports broadcasting will likely
become increasingly prevalent in the
near future, with the recent Consumer
Electronics Show in Las Vegas being
dominated by the technology. Sports
fans will soon be able to enjoy groundbreaking definition from the comfort
of their own homes, greatly improving
the overall viewer experience.
Customer demand for high quality,
live content across different platforms
is now the norm - 4K broadcasting,
increased
network
bandwidth
and quick turnaround is making it
possible to meet these demands and
is changing the role that technology
plays.
Over
the
next
year,
Tata
Communications will continue to push
the boundaries in sport broadcasting,
with new prizes, partnerships and
technology to make the Formula 1®
experience even more rich, dynamic
and exciting for fans. Ultimately, it's
innovation and state of the art highperformance technology that make
this future possible.
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=n7P1Bc3Ms8E http://www.Formula1.com http://www.Formula1.com http://www.Formula1.com
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