Marconi delivers network for Wold International's worldwide broadcast-grade video distribution service
Marconi today announced that Wold International has become the latest video distribution service provider to deploy a Marconi broadband network for worldwide distribution of broadcast video for news, sports and special events. Wold International, a provider in global video transmission services, recently launched Meridian, a new, multi-service, high-bandwidth network that expands its range of video and data services.
With facilities in the USA, Japan, Korea, and the United Kingdom, Meridian links three continents and will allow Wold to realize competitive advantages in using the broadband telecommunications infrastructure to accelerate time-sensitive content to media companies around the world.
Wold awarded the business to Marconi after the telecommunications equipment provider demonstrated expertise in delivering broadcast-grade video over high-speed fiber and proved its capability to meet Wold's aggressive deployment schedules. Similar to Marconi's digital central-casting solution for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC), announced earlier this year, Marconi is providing Wold with a multi-service backbone for transporting high bit-rate, broadcast-grade video content and for delivering high-speed data services. Providing this multi-service capability over a single core network has helped Wold achieve faster and higher returns on its network infrastructure investment.
"Marconi's proven capability to provide high-speed, rock-solid transport of broadcast-quality video and its ability to meet Wold's tight timetable for network deployment were key factors in Wold's decision to award the contract to Marconi," said Robert E. Wold, president of Wold International. "Marconi's willingness to understand and deliver against Wold's business objectives will help us begin to deliver a return on our network investment immediately."
The initial rollout of Wold's worldwide video distribution network is based on Marconi's ASX-1000 and its ASX-200BX switches, interconnected with 622 Mbits/sec links. These high-speed connections enable broadcasters around the world to work seamlessly with remote event production crews as if they were local, through two-way video feeds, communication facilities and data services.
"The media world has changed and, today, society expects to see details of events and breaking news as they happen, not an hour later. The business of transporting broadcast-grade video content is evolving from what had been primarily satellite-based to one that leverages the immediacy of the world's telecommunications infrastructure," said Martin Harriman, Marconi's chief marketing officer. "Marconi's experience in providing networks that deliver broadcast-quality video makes us one of the leading vendors in this rapidly-developing market."
For more information about Marconi plc (Pittsburgh), go to the company's website at www.marconi.com. More information about Wold International Inc. (Los Angeles) can be found at www.woldinternational.com.