Arqiva Eyes Broadcasting Future With New Network From ntl:Telewest Business

Published 20th November 2009

Arqiva has made a significant investment in a new high capacity fibre network from ntl:Telewest Business, part of the Virgin Media Group, to serve its broadcast and enterprise customers. The new network is at the heart of the company’s strategy to develop new services that facilitate growth and enable partnerships. The network will be installed over the coming months and is planned to be service ready by early 2010.

Arqiva provides much of the infrastructure behind television, radio and wireless communications in the UK, and has an expanding presence in a number of key international markets. With the broadcast industry evolving and increasingly requiring more bandwidth, Arqiva decided to increase the capacity of its point-to-point network infrastructure. This will enable the company to accommodate and scale for customer growth. ntl:Telewest Business will initially provide a fully managed 71 Gigabit nation-wide network connecting 44 key sites, including all of Arqiva’s main satellite and terrestrial broadcast hubs, as well as a number of major customer locations.

“Our customer base is increasingly moving towards higher-bandwidth applications, including HDTV in the broadcast sector. To remain at the forefront of the digital revolution, we recognised that we would have to advance our terrestrial communications infrastructure. As a company, we are responsible for transmitting a vast number of ‘mission critical’ customer applications. While a five second delay to email might not be noticed, millions of viewers would pick up on that kind of interruption to their favourite TV programme. This places increasing pressure on us to ensure that our end-to-end networks are fully resilient.,” said Nick Thompson, Managing Director of Arqiva’s Satellite & Media division.

“The new network will enhance existing relationships with all of our customers because we will have ultimate end-to-end visibility over the critical services we provide them with. It also opens other avenues of opportunity that will enable us to grow our revenue. We’ve worked with ntl:Telewest Business for many years and knew that the company could develop a network that suited our unique business requirements,” he said.

The new network is to be deployed in conjunction with Huawei, which will provide the underlying transmission equipment. Huawei’s technology enables the network to carry both traditional telecommunication services as well as current and future broadcast service feeds. This will further increase Arqiva’s ability to deliver assured service quality to its customers.

“Arqiva’s customers differentiate themselves on the quality of service that they provide to the viewing public and they require assurances that the technology backbone is in place to provide the highest resiliency possible. By building its own network, Arqiva has seized the initiative ahead of its competitors and can carve out a unique position for itself in the industry,” said Marcus Hill, Head of SI Channel, for ntl:Telewest Business.