Intelsat Prepares to Deliver More Than 50,000 Hours of 2014 World Cup Coverage

Estádio do Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, one of the twelve venues for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Photo: Wikipedia

[Via Satellite 06-12-2014] Many of the world’s major news and sports programmers have committed to a total of about 500 MHz of capacity on several Intelsat satellites, and will also leverage the IntelsatOne terrestrial network, to bring coverage of the 2014 FIFA World Cup to viewers throughout the Americas and Europe.

Intelsat will support contribution services within Brazil and distribution of the World Feed to North and South America. The satellite provider will also support the contribution, distribution and fiber back-up demands of sports and news outlets in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa on an ad-hoc basis.

Capacity is reserved over seven Intelsat satellites: Galaxy 19, Intelsat 1R, Intelsat 11, Intelsat 805, Intelsat 901, Intelsat 23 and Intelsat 21. Programmers, Direct-to-Home (DTH) providers, media companies and content distribution partners alike will rely on Intelsat’s network to bring the World Cup to their viewers. Some of these partners include Televisa, TV Azteca, OTI, Univision, and DirecTV Latin America, among others.

Intelsat will also provide teleport services and fiber connectivity through its IntelsatOne network in the United States and Brazil through its partnership with BT Group’s Global Media Network (GMN) fiber network and media Point of Presence (PoP) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Intelsat plans to provide more than 50,000 hours of World Cup coverage in the 2014 games, making it one of the largest events in history as far as coverage hours.