Telstra expands US presence with Broadcast Operations Centre

Telstra Broadcast Services continues to expand its presence in the United States. The latest effort? The launch of a new Broadcast Operations Centre that is based at PSSI International’s Teleport in Pittsburgh, PA. The BOC allows enables TBS to add US-based managed services including operations, monitoring, bookings and technical services to its overall Telstra Global Media Network (GMN) offerings and complements Telstra’s existing broadcast operations facilities in London, Hong Kong and Sydney.

Telstra’s Adam Day says a new US-based BOC will help Telstra better serve the needs of European broadcasters.

Adam Day, Head of Enterprise, Technology and Broadcast Sales, Telstra, says there is immense global demand for North American content. The BOC supports live and recorded broadcast transmissions of news, sports and entertainment content, as well as digital broadcasting and IP video delivery and features a 24/7 facility with a master control room (MCR) for monitoring, bookings, trouble-shooting and delivering connections to major broadcast customers and global teleports.

“The new BOC allows Telstra Broadcast Services to offer North American content providers superior technology and access to international audiences in Europe, Asia and Australia,” he adds.

PSSI’s experience in live event management and transmission, and familiarity with the U.S. sports and entertainment market makes PSSI an ideal fit to support Telstra’s delivery of content originating and terminating in North America. The additional services handled through the PSSI facility will help ensure smooth operations during events with PSSI also handling frame rate conversions, encoding, decoding and uplink/downlinks of US content.

“This initiative represents a significant expansion of the work we’ve been doing together for years,” says Jason Land, Vice President, Strategic Television at PSSI. “Our event-based approach is the foundation for adding another layer of support and reliability to Telstra’s broadcast business, while allowing PSSI to leverage the global GMN network as an ‘in-house’ solution for our customers.”

Day says the ability to provide North American customers with a local operational presence and 24/7 master control room capabilities will provide them a world-class experience and is key to managing their content delivery to Europe and Asia Pacific.

“We believe our partnership with PSSI will reap benefits for content creators and content consumers on a global scale,” he says.