Advanced Television

Sky News first on Inmarsat Global Xpress

February 2, 2015

Reaching the latest milestone, Britain’s Sky News has successfully broadcast the first live, on-air transmission via Inmarsat’s new Ka-band satellite network, Global Xpress (GX). Partnering with Network Innovations (NI) and Inmarsat, Sky News was able to live stream HD video over the GX satellite (Inmarsat-5 F1) broadband network from Athens for the 25th January Greek election news coverage. This recent achievement came just days before Inmarsat launched the second GX satellite, Inmarsat-5 F2, on February 1st.

GX’s worldwide Ka-band service will offer opportunities for broadcasters to send live SD and HD video from the most remote and inaccessible regions of the world, and significantly enhances their satellite broadband connectivity options, complementing Inmarsat’s highly portable, backpack broadcasting L-band streaming IP solutions.

“We have been using Ka-band satellite broadband since 2011, in flyaway kits and more recently on vehicles. It provides our crews with portable, reliable IP connectivity when out in the field.” said Richard Pattison, Deputy Head of News Technology at Sky News. “Our team in Greece demonstrated that we can do the same with a GX terminal and, once fully operational, the GX service will be delivered across a truly worldwide footprint. Sky News loves to innovate, so we jumped at the chance to try the GX service for real; the fact that we delivered the first broadcast live over GX was a nice bonus.”

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