Globecast expands European fibre backbone up to 100G

Globecast is expanding its European fibre backbone as part of its global fibre network GCBN. The project will start on March this year and will enhance it to 100G. It is working in partnership with Net Insight, using its technology at POPs and customer sites to ensure the best quality via very low latency and the tight synchronisation of feeds, vital in edge processing for remote production. It will start with POPs in London, Frankfurt and Paris. Other regions will follow this year.

“GCBN features in a huge number of projects across contribution, distribution and our media supply chain services. It’s a global Ethernet backbone network, mostly supplied by Globecast parent company Orange and expanding the capacity is crucial given the continued growth in things like remote production and the use of 4K. It empowers our customers to satisfy viewer requirements in an ever more competitive environment,” assured Sebastien Fauzan, Director of Marketing and Business Development for Sport and Live with Globecast.

To ensure low latency and synchronisation of feeds, Globecast is using Net Insight’s Nimbra 1060 core processing technology at relevant points in the network. With timing-awareness, different video feeds can be aligned in time upon delivery, enabling synchronised playout for use cases such as remote production and primary distribution. Furthermore, IP-based synchronisation using PTP can be extended over wide area networks, enabling distributed production or remote production in any location.