The European Broadcasting Union (EBU), one of the world´s major providers of international transmission services of live sports and news events, has signed a Master Purchase Agreement and ordered network switching and customer equipment from Net Insight. Eurovision, the operational service of EBU, will use Net Insights Nimbra platform for its new international fiber TV and data network.
The Eurovision network will during the second quarter of 2004 complement Eurovisions existing satellite network to offer TV transport services as well as LAN connectivity to EBU members and other media customers. The network will carry real time critical traffic, including breaking news and sporting events.
The agreement with Eurovision is the ultimate acknowledgement of our solution within the professional media industry, says Tomas Duffy, CEO at Net Insight. There are few other companies that have the same high demands when it comes to reliability and QoS for transporting high quality video traffic.
With its new network, Eurovision will provide connectivity for TV traffic between the largest media cities in Europe, with trans-Atlantic connections into the USA. The first phase of the network roll-out includes seven cities in Europe and two in the USA, with the objective to connect around twenty cities in later phases.
This new development will bring Eurovision quality to digital video through fiber contributions and complement perfectly the existing Eurovision satellite network”, said Stefan Kürten, Director of Eurovision Operations.
The network implementation has begun with the objective to launch a full commercial service in April 2004.