Sporting Italy uses satellites to share more goals

Satcoms are enabling smaller football clubs in Italy to broadcast their matches in high quality from 60 stadiums, via the Internet. With ESA's support, a consortium has developed and tested an Internet service that relies on satellites. Whereas premier stadiums can afford professional filming services and dedicated satcom bandwidth, stadiums in the lower leagues do not have a large enough audience to justify the costs. New satellite systems making use of Ka-band turn out to be cheaper, more reliable, offer greater capacity and are more flexible than the terrestrial option. The matches are distributed to audiences through a web-streaming portal so that a large number of users can access matches live over the Internet. The cost is relatively low because all the service requires is two fixed stations per camera installed at the stadiums, units for processing the video signals, and facilities for two camera operators on site when required. Remotely controlled cameras can also be used.