Formula E and Tata Communications have announced a strategic multi-year relationship with the global commtech company becoming the Official Broadcast Distribution Provider to the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.
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The new agreement will see Tata Communications deliver high-definition, high-resolution and high-speed live broadcast content to viewers around the world as part of Formula E’s new remote broadcast production of live races, reducing the environmental impact typical of major live international sports events on TV.
Tata Communications technologically advanced, software-defined media edge platform will deliver more than 160 live video and audio signals from Formula E races across continents within milliseconds, using 26 media edge locations across North America, Europe and Asia.
The new super-fast race broadcast distribution will be supported by Tata Communications specially trained experts, providing round-the-clock global end-to-end managed services at all 16 races this season. Tata Communications and Formula E are also working together to further enrich experiences for motorsport fans with innovation and efficiency.
The development is particularly significant to India in that the Formula E as the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship debuted in India in the second week of February, in Hyderabad, Telangana.
The 2023 Greenko Hyderabad E-Prix – as the event was called – was held on 11 February, 2023, at what was pridefully billed as India’s first Street Circuit at the artificial Hussain Sagar lake, and NTR Gardens. As many as 11 teams – with two drivers each – from Mahindra Racing, Jaguar TCS Racing, Maserati MSG Racing and NEOM McLaren Formula E Team competed in the event.
It may be in the fitness of things that the Telangana capital is fast emerging as one of the six cities in India for motoracing prospects, with high tech racing tracks getting underway.
“Formula E is an intense tour given its on-the-go nature,” Jamie Reigle, CEO, Formula E, said. “Tata Communications’ support over the years has enabled state-of-the-art remote production possible, with real-time TV signal transmissions from the race venues to our broadcast centre in London and finally to the audience’s screens,” he explained. “Thus, bringing down multiple logistical challenges, driving cost efficiencies, travel flexibilities for our employee, especially women, and reducing emissions.”
Endorses A.S Lakshminarayanan, MD and CEO, Tata Communications: “There are 85 cameras capturing the event for over 400 million people watching all over the world. To be able to facilitate that truly speaks about the power of internet that we have been able to leverage, with our dedicated media cloud and edge computing capabilities.
And apart from our long-standing partnership with FIA, we extend the services to multiple major sporting leagues across the world.”
Tata Communications sustainable remote production solution will transmit and transfer live racing action from over 85 camera feeds and audio channels on each racetrack to Formula E’s central remote production hub in the UK. The repackaged feeds are distributed to global rights holding broadcasters and digital platforms leveraging Tata Communications global edge infrastructure.
Tata Communications media edge cloud is capable of enabling very low latency video processing from any venue using first-mile internet while processing and distributing the video signals to any platform globally with high availability.
Offered as a fully-managed service, availability of edge capability at the venue allows businesses to add a wide variety of digital services such as providing high performance data tunnels over a secure connection to help with real time data enrichment for better viewer experience.
