Working with America’s Cup and the host production provider for AC36, Austria’s circle-o, TBS designed a bespoke network encompassing a wide range of different services that it says few other companies would be able to match within their portfolios.

AC36’s key requirement was for scalable and reliable contribution and distribution services that could meet the demands of 55 major networks, as well as global online distribution through YouTube, Facebook, and the America's Cup website. Alongside that, large amounts of broadcast-quality content needed to be regularly uploaded to a media cloud as part of the production workflow, and a 24/7 connection was required to circle-o’s remote centre in Wuppertal, Germany.

“Telstra had a technical service that was outstanding,” comments Werner Eksler, MD for circle-o. “It was important for us to have one partner and not three partners for three different services, and the communication with Telstra was excellent.”

TBS curated an international contribution and distribution solution from its high-bandwidth media network, known as the Special Events Network, to meet these challenges. This solution managed end-to-end IP broadcast network provided services, including on-site and remote broadcast operations; remote production; the distribution of world feeds and streaming feeds to global rights holders; the contribution of signals (including 24/7 upload and Point-to-Point IP connectivity); and bespoke internet services onsite, including ethernet private lines.

“We had a great experience with Telstra,” comments Stephen Nuttall, Head of Production and Distribution at America’s Cup. “The fibre delivery, I think, was a major plus; it was pretty straightforward for broadcasters to plug into the Telstra network. They were always available and very proactive in doing testing with broadcasters. And they delivered an operation, which was, from my point of view, as a rights holder, seamless and very, very reliable.”