Colt and BT Sign Access Agreement to Europe's Largest Media Market Exchange

Access to more content unlocks new revenue opportunities for broadcasters

As the largest media switch in Europe, the BT Tower in London is responsible for 95 percent of all UK and 75 percent of all UK to Europe video traffic. Building on its existing broadcast specific services, Colt will be able to provide broadcasters with access to key live dedicated and occasional use content from BT’s network of around 350 sports and news locations in the UK. This will include the ability for broadcasters to use the Colt network to transport content from national and international sports fixtures taking place in the UK.

Greater access to televised content and worldwide markets will enable broadcasters to unlock potential distribution or syndication revenue opportunities by delivering more sports and news coverage to viewers.

“This agreement helps BT Wholesale’s media and broadcast division in our mission  to create a next generation media community that leverages digital media to reduce costs, improve collaboration and exploit new business models,” comments Mark Wilson-Dunn, BT Wholesale’s Media & Broadcast Director of Global Sales. “Our agreement with Colt will give our broadcast customers in the UK,US and Asia additional options to reach broadcast destinations across Europe.”

“The broadcasting sector is currently going through a number of significant  transformations with the onset of digitisation, transition to high-definition services, convergence of IT networks and content delivery platforms, and the proliferation of devices consumers use,” comments Mark Webb, Business Development Manager, Media, Colt Technology Services. “This agreement on top of Colt’s existing impressive broadcast specific service capability ideally positions us to help our customers offer reliable, high quality content from sporting and news events to a wider geographic reach.”

About Colt and the Media Sector
Whether content is delivered in Standard Definition, High Definition or 3D, it needs to be both high quality and reliable.  With more wholly owned fibre links to Europe’s media companies than anybody else, Colt is already an established provider of high quality and reliable broadcast specific services. Based on customer feedback, Colt’s point to point fibre connections provide high bandwidth which removes several problems associated with satellite transmission and provides a consistently high level of service.  Key European media broadcasters in London, Madrid, Milan, Munich and Paris are already using Colt’s network.

About Colt
Colt is the information delivery platform for Europe, enabling its customers to deliver, share, process and store their vital business information. An established leader in delivering integrated computing and network services to major organisations, midsized businesses and wholesale customers, Colt operates a 21-country, 35,000km network that includes metropolitan area networks in 39 major European cities with direct fibre connections into 18,000 buildings and 19 Colt data centres.

About BT Global Media Network
BT’s Global Media Network provides access to all the key locations around the world where content is either created or distributed.  It offers low operating costs, fast connectivity, bandwidth and low latency. It provides 99.999% availability with no single point of failure and the functionality to control bandwidth allocation through online scheduling.BT’s continues to invest in its Global Media Network year on year and as well as expanding the footprint, this investment is enabling M&B to offer additional internet based applications and media file transfer capabilities.      For places beyond the reach of our terrestrial solutions, M&B offers satellite solutions to over 100 countries, with hubs in a number of locations around the world, with our greatest capabilities being developed in the UK, Europe and across Africa