NAB 2011: Intelsat, BT Team Up on Global Terrestrial Network

Just in time for the NAB Show, Intelsat has announced an alliance with BT to expand the reach of its IntelsatONE terrestrial network to Europe, Africa, and Asia.

The Intelsat and BT media fiber alliance interconnects Intelsat’s MPLS-based IntelsatONE network that comprises fiber, teleports, and points of presence (PoPs) with BT’s MPLS-based Global Media Network (GMN). The two networks will initially interconnect in New York and London.

The strategic alliance will develop and market seamless, next-generation managed-media solutions with global terrestrial and satellite reach across two complementary media networks. BT’s GMN has PoPs and gateways in more than 20 media cities worldwide. Having access to those strategic locations enables Intelsat to extend the reach of IntelsatONE to media customers operating in Europe, Africa and Asia. Additional PoPs are in Rome, Paris, Lagos, Johannesburg, Sydney, Taipei, Kuala Lumpur, and Mumbai.

In addition, the alliance enables BT to take advantage of IntelsatONE gateways in North America and add Intelsat teleport and satellite offerings to its GMN solutions. The combined offering provides a seamless end-to-end global media programming-delivery solution for major broadcasters, rights owners, and media distributors.

Occasional-use (OU) and special-events customers will be able to combine access to the BT Tower video switch and backhaul feeds from BT’s GMN fiber nodes, with access to dedicated OU capacity on Intelsat’s satellite fleet for both SD and HD applications.

Full-time customers will be able to develop their own point-to-point and point-to-multipoint private-network solutions between nodes on the BT and Intelsat fiber networks for contribution applications. They will also have access to Intelsat’s portfolio of teleport hosting and MCPC solutions from BT’s GMN fiber locations.