LiveU reports “massive” growth in usage at Qatar World Cup

LiveU has released some statistics from the Qatar 2022 World Cup, with a 100% increase in usage of its units and a 160% increase in live sessions.

In Qatar, some 1,000 of the company’s field units were used by broadcasters and sports organisations from 60 countries. That is up from 485 units from 40 countries at the 2018 World Cup.

The tournament in Qatar saw a 160% increase in live sessions to 78,000 with 40% of them over 5G and a 73% increase in data usage, with 62TB of live transmissions. Over 20,000 hours of continuous live broadcasts from Qatar were recorded. LiveU said that Argentina and Spain were responsible for the most data, sessions, and broadcast hours.

LiveU VP marketing Ronen Artman said: “These numbers, even bigger than expected, are the result of the multi-year project planning and preparation that went into getting ready for the event.

“We saw the market need for increased usage and support, and prepared accordingly. LiveU units could be seen everywhere in Qatar, covering the matches themselves, players’ interviews, interaction with the fans, general atmosphere and technical aspects of the games.

“Feedback has been tremendous with customers leveraging the 5G/4G networks inside and around the stadiums for reliable 4K/HD quality coverage and using our remote production (REMI) workflows and IP distribution to reduce costs. Our events team played a critical role, providing on-ground 24/7 support and unlimited data plans from our service hub in Doha. The team also ensured the official CRA authorization in the run-up to the event.”

LiveU’s cloud-based solutions were also used during the tournament, including LiveU Matrix for the cost-effective IP cloud distribution of live feeds to global takers. Enabling increased efficiency, remote cloud production workflows were deployed, with smaller crews required on-site and centralized production in home countries.