[SatNews] TV audiences across South America are enjoying all the sights, sounds and action from this year’s World Cup as a result of a fully dedicated teleport hosting package provided for Eurovision, a division of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), by GE Satcom. Which is both a good and bad thing, depending on your team's status, and you'll hear those vuvuzelas noisemakers.

The service gives Eurovision, the premier distributor of sports and news content for the world’s top broadcast and media platforms, full uplink/downlink control of TV coverage received from the tournament, which is then rebroadcast to the millions of fans at home following Brazil’s ‘Samba Boys’, the ‘Albicelestes’ of Argentina and the other South American nations represented at South Africa 2010. GE Satcom hosts Eurovision’s own equipment at its teleport in Leuk, Switzerland. This is one of two operation centers through which the company delivers global turnkey satellite communication solutions, the other teleport being in Backnang, Germany.

“The Eurovision headquarters are in Geneva so the proximity of our Leuk teleport was a key factor in the client’s decision,” explains Ronny Svang, President and CEO of GE Satcom, “but there was more to it than that.” “During a recent visit to the facility, Eurovision were impressed by the diverse range of antenna infrastructure, from 2.4 meter to 30 meter antennas in multiple frequency bands, and our willingness to accommodate their needs in terms of hosting and flexibility of uplink and downlink capability.”

“Our respective teams work well together too. We have a highly professional team on site who can provide immediate engineering support, while Eurovision are also able to send in their own technical teams to work with our people” concluded Svang.

Stefan Kuerten, Director of Eurovision Operations stated, “We are working closely with GE Satcom to bring top quality sports events to the world broadcasting community. GE Satcom has proven a reliable partner in our mission to put the most prestigious sports programming exactly where broadcasters need it, in a seamless, reliable and cost-effective way”.