Globecast & Infront Collaborate For Ice Hockey World Championships

Globecast has partnered with Infront to deliver global distribution services for the 2021 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships for the first time.

The global solutions provider delivered the project as part of a long-term partnership with Infront. Globecast provided all of the encoding and connectivity from the site for the contribution path back to London via fibre, along with international distribution of the world feed.

Onsite, encoding and monitoring solutions were provided across two diverse stadiums in Riga, Latvia, allowing for full diversity and disaster recovery while adapting to COVID protocols. With Globecast's engineering talent it was able to provide duel and diverse MCRs, not only for all the feeds going out but also the return global distribution feeds so that Infront could see what their customers were receiving. The feeds were sent to the UK for onwards distribution using Globecast's teleport infrastructure.

James Whittaker, Business Development Manager at Globecast, said: "This is the first time we've worked on the IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships, which is exciting for us, and is a marquee event for Infront. This project forms part of a multi-year, multi-sports partnership we have with Infront. Other sports we've already provided services to them for include the European Handball League, The Champions Hockey League, cycling's Tour De Suisse as well as volleyball and athletics."

With the provision of multiplatform services for Infront, Globecast is making full use of its market-leading satellite connectivity and global teleports, alongside its intercontinental fibre network. These traditional delivery methods have been uniquely combined with cloud technology. Infront is benefitting not only from cloud-based streaming, but also a monitoring solution that allows services to be seen in real time, over IP. Contribution content can be viewed at all the key points of the transmission chain.

Whittaker added: "Alongside our premium connectivity, we've really focussed on our customer approach with this partnership, providing a very 'high touch' service, which is paramount in today's market. Our aim is to continuously exceed customer expectations, from the initial bidding process through the entirety of the contract. As part of our ongoing efforts to continuously improve our QoS, not only from a technical standpoint but also from a customer service perspective, we ensure that Infront has complete access to all members of the team, from the Account Manager, to the technical experts who manage, monitor and deliver the feeds through the MCR, all the way through to the finance and bookings departments."

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