Alcatel-Lucent plans to use its end-to-end LTE network solution to provide TV broadcasters with a live video feed of the World Match Racing Tour’s German Grand Prix, an international sailing boat race.

This innovative usage of 4G LTE technology replaces a ‘traditional’, more complex set-up for streaming video - and shows that LTE can have a significant impact on the transmission of live video content during sports events.

For this project, Alcatel-Lucent has set up a complete end-to-end network - to stream live video content directly from the sailing boats into the public viewing area, and onto the Internet. The Alcatel-Lucent LTE network covers the 4-5 kilometre racing event area -spanning Lake Constance, Kressbronn as well as the city of Langenargen where the TV production centre is located.

“Thanks to the partnership with Alcatel-Lucent, the complexity related to relaying video content to the TV production studios is reduced significantly,” says Eberhard Magg, Managing Director, Match Race Germany. “The end-to-end LTE solution powered by Alcatel-Lucentshowcasesnew ways of making major sports events’ video coverage available to a worldwide audience.”

“This unique event demonstrates that Alcatel-Lucent is at the forefront of introducing new technological and commercial benefits through our portfolio of next-generation mobile and fixed technologies,” says Dr. Erich Zielinski, End-to-End 4G/LTE solutions, Alcatel-Lucent. “Today, we prove there is real business potential behind service providers selling LTE capacity on-demand to TV broadcasters who are interested in offering live video streams from sports events. This whole undertaking is a model of what Alcatel-Lucent calls its High Leverage NetworkTM architecture - providing sufficient capacity for the ever-growing data traffic at the lowest cost per bit, all with the intelligence necessary to create new business opportunities for our customers.”

Live feeds from Formula-1 and cycling races, soccer games or track and field events are common today. However, the effort involved to get all video shots transmitted to the production studio is significant. Expensive satellite links, proprietary trunk radio systems, and even helicopters with mobile radio antennas are used for this very complex and costly operation.

A world’s first, the German Grand Prix will now see live on-deck video streams captured by onboard cameras and transmitted via LTE to the on-shore production studios, guaranteeing a high-speed, reliable and high-quality connection.