September 28, 2019 - Fastweb, a major Italian telecommunication service provider, and the Lega Nazionale Pallacanestro (LNP), the Italian national basketball league, announced the live streaming of the biggest matches in Serie A2 Italian professional basketball, Super Cup Final Four, held on 27-28 September at the historic sports venue PalaLido-Allianz Cloud in Milan. Fastweb will set up 5G coverage of Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) to broadcast the live feed of matches. Live streaming a sporting event of this magnitude marks another milestone in the field of 5G technology and opens new possibilities for the development of innovative sports entertainment services, as already demonstrated during the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.
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Fastweb Lights up 5G for the National Basketball League Super Cup Final Four
Sep 28. 2019This is the first sporting event to be broadcasted live in Italy with this new technology. For video collection, edit, broadcast and transmission of the live feed of the matches, Fastweb will supply the Allianz Cloud stadium with 5G solutions integrated into its fiber optic network, which enables a high-performance, low-latency connection and a greater transmission capacity with speeds up to 1Gbps.
The 5G data connection in FWA will be made through a Samsung 5G radio antenna installed inside the stadium, which will transmit signals on millimeter waves using 26GHZ frequency spectrum acquired by Fastweb as part of the recent 5G auction. The antenna, which will be connected in optical fiber, will transmit the 5G signals to a director who will collect and send the signals to the cameras for the live shooting of the matches.
"It is a source of great pride to be the first to show live basketball games on what will soon become the source of connection for everyone, the 5G network," says Fabio Manca, president of LNP Servizi. "We are excited to be on the forefront of new technology in sports entertainment and the Super Cup Final Four is the perfect opportunity to partake in this new endeavor. We have always cherished our role as pioneers, as demonstrated by the launching of LNP PASS streaming platform, and this year expanding our services through apps and Smart TV. I thank Fastweb for accepting our request, confirming a partnership of mutual respect and collaboration and we are ready to further developments in livestreaming of sports and entertainment.
"The broadcast in 5G key matches in major sporting events is the perfect opportunity for us to test the full potential of our 5G FWA infrastructure, a revolutionary technology in which we have announced important investments and which will allow us to enable new and innovative digital services for the benefit of customers and all sports fans," said Andrea Lasagna, Chief Technology Officer of Fastweb.
The 5G FWA has in fact already amply demonstrated, through the pilot project conducted by Fastweb in collaboration with Samsung in recent months in Milan, to be a viable alternative to fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) networks, able to guarantee connections at gigabit speed per second and low latency.
Fastweb is also the "Official Technology Partner" of the Lega Basket for the 2019/2020 season. For the second consecutive year, the company will provide LNP with high-speed fiber optic connections in 28 sports halls of the A2 Series, for the live broadcast of the matches.