iStreamPlanet has chosen Interxion’s City of London data centre to host its European Broadcast Operations Centre. This will enable iStreamPlanet to deliver live streaming of premium sporting events, including major European Soccer and tennis tournaments this summer, to a global audience on behalf of online rights holders and distributors.

As part of the project, iStreamPlanet has also installed a satellite downlink facility, enabling it to not only distribute live content over a wide range of CDNs, but also to acquire broadcast content via both fibre and satellite. iStreamPlanet is also looking to facilitate live, in-game commentary from inside its studios in multiple languages.

The broadcast industry is seeing an unprecedented increase in online viewers for large scale events (the 2011 Royal wedding was reported to have broken the previous online live streaming record of approximately 70 million, which was set during the inauguration of President Barack Obama). To cope with this growing demand, content providers must be confident that they can match customer expectations for premium content across a variety of channels.

Interxion’s Content Hubs represent the ideal environment for effective aggregation, storage, exchange, management and distribution of premium digital media content. Content owners can obtain direct in-house cross connects to all necessary IP distribution networks for the optimised delivery of their content, including Tier 1 ISPs, Access Network Providers, Internet Exchanges and CDNs.