Tata Communications Ltd. is leveraging advances in IP-technology and cloud infrastructure to develop a broader solution set for its customers.
In the past, contribution feeds, or video feeds from events facilities sent back to the central broadcast facility, were carried via satellite. Commentary, graphics, etc. are then added, and the final product was then broadcast over the air.
But now IP-technology coupled with fiber networks allow for these contribution feeds to be delivered via fiber networks. Providers of such services, such as Tata Communications, have also started top add-on additional services particularly with the growth of OTT video services. These include edge caching, video adaptation and content delivery.
According to Brian Morris, vice president and general manager of global media and entertainment services at the operator, there is a major shift underway in the "evolution from historic video distribution infrastructure that was satellite based, to IP-based infrastructure, for a substantial part of video services [for contribution]; and the transition from appliance-based processing to cloud-based processing architectures." (See Tata Communications' Morris: The Cloud Contributes, The Cloud Distributes…)
He points out that Tata Communications has 220km of undersea cable and more than 1 million square feet of data centers across a number of different locations, so it sees this evolution as an important opportunity. According to Morris, "Tata provides transport for contribution, distribution, hosting -- once it's in our cloud we can do media storage, transcoding, ABR [adaptive bit rate video streaming], broadcast playout, graphics -- a whole host of functions. And it's cloud-based, so it's all opex -- buy-as-you-go, usage-based pricing."
The operator sees the shift to multiscreen delivery and OTT as a key driver for such services, and also anticipates the growing adoption of UHD will create new opportunities, citing the delivery of the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix to the UK a few years ago as an example.
— Aditya Kishore, Practice Leader, Video Transformation, Telco Transformation