F1 broadcasts part of Tata's growing digital ambitions

Dozens of video and audio feeds were transmitted from Singapore to Britain within 20 milliseconds - less than the time taken for the human eye to blink - during the Formula One Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix in September.

- Tay Hong Yi

This transmission speed and bandwidth have made it possible for much of the broadcast production work to be done remotely from Britain, regardless of where a race is held.

“Previously, everything used to happen on-site, so they used to fly people and a cargo plane load's worth of equipment to produce (the broadcast) in every race,” said Mr A.S. Lakshminarayanan, 63, chief executive and managing director of Tata Communications. It is the arm of the Indian conglomerate that provides data, cloud and networking services.

Now, only less than half the broadcast equipment has to be flown in for each race, noted Mr Lakshminarayanan, who was in town for the Singapore Grand Prix race weekend, in an exclusive interview with The Straits Times on Sept 24.

Global sporting federations, from motorsport to tennis, united by the need to store, transmit and distribute instantly large amounts of data, are a major customer segment for the firm.

There is still room for growth for the firm in sports coverage such as American football, as well as gaining capability to take on broadcast production by itself, Mr Lakshminarayanan said.