MONTREAL—A recent test on remote links by Grass Valley and CenturyLink has highlighted the possibilities of remote production when using IP technology. Using CenturyLink’s 100 Gbps high-speed Vyvx network and GV’s DirectIP feature, uncompressed multicamera signals were able to be delivered from the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami to a base station in Tulsa, Okla, showcasing how remote IP productions could be used to replace large, on-site production crews.

The test featured three GV LDX 86N cameras running at 10 Gbps each. With the DirectIP configuration, uncompressed signals were transmitted via the Vyvx network to base stations and operational control panels located at the provider’s point of presence in Tulsa.

“With Grass Valley's DirectIP, we have demonstrated how our Vyvx network can enable broadcasters in the U.S. and select global locations to achieve advantages of remote production to produce large scale live events,” said Bill Woutnaka, vice president of CenturyLink.

Grass Valley and CenturyLink are expected to conduct additional trials in the coming months.

MOSCOW--Some technology-facing aspects of the 2018 World Cup were revealed Monday ahead of the soccer tournament's big kick off next Thursday (June 14) in Russia.

CenturyLink, which polished off its acquisition of Level 3 Communications last November said it will transmit live feeds from the tournament to top networks in the U.S. and Latin America, including Fox in the U.S., TV Azteca in Mexico, and RCN and Caracol in Columbia.

Those broadcasters, representing a subset of broadcasters in the region that will work with CenturyLink for the World Cup, will tap CenturyLink’s Vyvx Solutions to provide routes in the transmission of tournament and other World Cup content feeds from Moscow, Russia to each programmer’s master control facilities.

[Read: Telemundo Deportes Partners With Panini For World Cup AR Experience]

Fox Sports and IBM, meanwhile, said they will collaborate on an A.I. initiative across multiple Fox Sports programming for the World Cup. More specifically, Fox Sports will use IBM Watson Media’s A.I. video technology to streamline production workflows to rapidly classify, edit, and access match highlights in “near real-time,” they said.

That A.I.-facing capability will help Fox Sports curate “engaging” video clips and match highlights, the companies added. The collaboration will start with the launch of The Highlight Machine, an interactive experience developed by IBM’s iX unit that enables viewers to browse FIFA’s archive of past matches and to create custom highlights by year, team, player, and play type.

Back to CenturyLink’s involvement, the company has been working closely with local telecoms in Russia and the International Broadcast Center that puts together the source feeds for the broadcasters, Bill Wohnoutka, vice president of global internet and content delivery services for CenturyLink, explained, noting that CenturyLink will work with its broadcast partners to deliver content in multiple formats, including standard- and high-definition as well as 4K.

In addition to transmission, CenturyLink’s Vyvx platform will also handle encoding, decoding, onsite operations, monitoring, and frame-rate conversion.

Getting those logistics lined up alongside the security requirements present some of the big challenges around this year’s World Cup, as “it’s pretty complicated to get content out of Russia, Wohnoutka added.

Among the group of broadcasters working with CenturyLink for the World Cup, Fox’s networks are on tap to broadcast 64 matches live, more than the previous four tournaments combined, and the most-ever for an English-language network, Keith Goldberg, VP of global operations and transmission services for Fox, noted in the release.

“That’s more than 350 hours of total programming, and CenturyLink will play a critical role in enabling us to deliver that content to millions of viewers across the U.S.,” Goldberg added.

Update: Fox Sports also announced details for its FIFA World Cup Hub, which will provide live streams and full replays of the aforementioned 64 matches, as well as access to bonus feeds (including “team channels”), commentary, rosters, stats and highlights. Following similar work done during last season’s CONCACAF Gold Cup, Fox Sports said it will again team with LiveLike on a social VR offering that features a digital suite and three, multi-angle feeds from each match.

Fox Sports noted that its World Cup Hub will provide access to digital content across FoxSports.com and the Fox Sports App.

Fox Sports said adidas is the presenting sponsor for the Fox Sports streaming effort across digital platforms for the entire tournament. Coca-Cola is on board to sponsor the short-form 90 in 90 match highlights. Coca-Cola and adidas are co-sponsoring the Team Channels feature.

MONROE, LA.—Northern Louisiana telecom CenturyLink is continuing to cut copper while regulators chew on its $25 billion purchase of Level 3, internet service provider to giants such as Netflix.

CenturyLink filed several copper retirement notifications that the Federal Communications Commission released on Halloween. In Fort Myers, Fla., the provider said it plans to “retire copper loops and replace them with fiber loops using its fiber-to-the-home overlay architecture as customers migrate to higher speed broadband internet access.”

Four other filings indicate CenturyLink is cutting copper in other communities in Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin, Arizona, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico and Washington.

In these filings1, CenturyLink said only that, “Due to growth in the distribution areas, CenturyLink plans to cut facilities to fiber-fed digital-loop carrier systems.”

It said nothing about the FTTH overlay or the availability of other services after facilities are cut, as it did in this Network Disclosure Announcement from June, which included the assurance: “After the cut to DLC, copper reliant services, such as non-loaded copper loops will not be supported. All other types of unbundled loops will still be available.”

FCC rules adopted in August of 2015 require approval for discontinuation of service related to copper retirement, but require no approval process “for retirement of legacy facilities so long as the change of technology does not discontinue, reduce, or impair the services provided—ensuring that incumbent local exchange carriers can continue to transition to an all-fiber environment.”

The facilities, including the one in Fort Myers, will be cut April 30, 2017.

CenturyLink has been retiring copper lines at least since 2012, according to filings available online. In the case of this announcement affecting the Tucson, Ariz., infrastructure, CenturyLink said road construction forced it to “abandon its copper cables and transfer services to a fiber-fed digital loc system.”

FierceTelecom reported on CenturyLink copper retirements disclosed in July and said that new fibered facilities in Minnesota and Washington were part of the carrier’s 16-city fiber-to-the-premises effort create 1 Gbps business and residential service.

However, if Google’s effort is any indication, the fiber build-outs may not pan out as planned.

Google scaled back its ambitious fiber launched in Kansas City five years ago, and that now includes Austin, Texas; Atlanta, Charlotte, N.C.; Nashville; Provo, Utah; Salt Lake City and the Raleigh-Durham N.C. area. Several more “potential fiber cities” were put on indefinite hold while the plan to wire San Francisco was dropped in favor of wireless service, ars technica said.

While Google didn’t say as much, observers noted that Google’s game of overbuilding is expensive and difficult. Nashville Public Radio reports two water main breaks have been attributed to Google’s overbuild there. In Louisville, Ky., AT&T challenged a municipal ordinance giving Google Fiber expedited access to utility poles, ars technica reports.

Shortly after Google announced the rollback, AT&T’s Joan Marsh observed that Google fiber learned “something we’ve known for over a hundred years—deploying communications networks is hard and takes an enormous amount of time, money and skilled labor.”

CenturyLink—which has the home-field advantage of being an incumbent versus an overbuilder—has given no indication of curtailing its fiber build-out while the copper retirement continues. The Level 3 acquisition will bring CenturyLink another 200,000 miles of fiber, according to The New York Times.

CenturyLink is not alone in retiring copper. In April, The Philadelphia Inquirerreported on a program within Verizon called “Fiber is the Only Fix,” in which old copper lines are not repaired, but only replaced with fiber.

Meanwhile in Western Europe, internet service providers are developing technology to delivery up to 5 Gbps over copper, ars said. This technology, XG.fast, is the assumed successor to G.fast, which purported to match fiber speeds over copper at 400 meters, was approved by the International Telecommunications Union in 2014. A study by Ovum highlighted at ZDNetsaid G.fast will be in 29 million premises in five years.


1. Report Nos. NCD-2639 & NCD-2595; Report Nos. NCD-2640 & NCD-2596; Report Nos. NCD-2637 & NCD-2593; Report Nos. NCD-2641 & NCD-2597.

Also See…
Oct. 31, 2016
“CenturyLink, a Network Provider, to Acquire Level 3, a Rival”
It brings CenturyLink an additional 200,000 route miles of fiber and potentially big commercial customers.


Aug. 25, 2016
“Report: Google Fiber to Cut Staff After User Totals Disappoint,”DSL Reports

Dec. 9, 2014
“4KTV: ITU Enables 1 Gbps Over Copper”
The global media technology standards body approved a method for getting data through phone lines at 1 Gbps.