ABS provides Occasional Use Capacity for Broadcast Services on the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup in Russia

30 June 2017  

ABS has signed an agreement with Prime Telecom, Brazil for occasional use (OU) capacity on the ABS-3A satellite for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup games for Televisión Nacional de Chile (TVN), one of the most important and traditional broadcasters in Chile.    It is the 10^th FIFA Confederations Cup, a football tournament organized by FIFA, held in Russia from 17 June to 2 July.    The matches are being played across four cities; Saint Petersburg, Moscow, Kazan and Sochi with eight teams competing for the coveted title.

ABS-3A at 3°W is one of the very few satellites with the capability to provide suitable Ku band coverage over Russia and South America in a single hop.  ABS-3A offers cross-strapping capability that enables uplink from any of the four venues where the matches are taking place in Russia directly to the TVN facilities in Santiago, Chile.  The capacity is being used for live transmissions of the games in high definition and for collateral transmissions from outside of the stadiums and hotels.  

“ABS is very pleased in supporting and bringing together some of the exciting sporting moments of this FIFA Confederations Cup to the world.   The success of this operation is made possible by the joint effort with our commercial partner in Brazil, Prime Telecom, and Centro de Televisión y Telepuerto (CTT), a DSNG operator in Chile hired by the Chilean broadcaster for the transmissions in Russia,” stated Tom Choi of ABS. “ABS-3A satellite offers full time video services of sports and news content in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as ad hoc services complementing existing full-time capacity arrangements.

“We are very happy with the results of this project and the excellent market exposure we are experiencing so far in the region. This is good preparation as we plan for a much larger event for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia next year,” commented André Balthazar of Prime Telecom.  “The customers are very pleased with the quality of the transmissions and the competitive cost of the solution.”

“Despite the challenges of deploying and operating the DSNGs in four different venues and at a different time zone, the operation is running very smoothly,” said Rodrigo Peralta of CTT.  “In live transmissions where there is no room for errors and conditions can change drastically, having the proper support proves invaluable. ABS understood the needs and successfully implemented the solution and associated services.”