Project gallery

2009

Since as early as 2009 B&I was involved with similar projects with Supersport where we looked at permanent rig broadcast cabling to Stadiums to save on wear and tear of daily use as well as the time it took to put  temporary cables into a stadium per event. Different case studies were conducted where a combination of HD, SD, Audio and CAT 5 as well as some fibre cables were proposed. This project was halted during the 2010 World Cup due to the possibility of cables being damaged by overseas users.
After the World Cup, SuperSport sent a team of Engineers to Europe to evaluate the prospects of permanent wiring of main stadiums. It was clear to them that the best and most cost effective way was to use only fibre cable and it was therefore neccessary to convert all signals to fibre by means of fibre adaptors.
B&I was continiously part of these evaluations and all types of fibre connectors were tested for durability and dust tolerance. Different permutations of fibre redundancy were conducted where we found that the max fibre connections are limited to provide super slo-mo camera signals through fibre but it proved that HD signals were not affected and worked seamlessly.  B&I designed the lockable, water proofed boxes for the fibre cables to ensure the safety of the cables and easy access during sport events.
At this point B&I were awarded a contract to permanently install fibre cables at Coca-Cola Park (Ellis Park) in January 2012. During February the stadium held its share of Super Rugby games working through the new fibre system with no problems. The response was very favourable by camera men, especially to the rig and the de-rig time frames. This meant the OB vehicle could leave the stadium in under one hour after a major event.
Through this success B&I was awarded the contract to do SuperSport Park in Centurion as well as Loftus Versveldt in Pretoria and the Wanderers Cricket Stadium in Johannesburg. All these stadiums had up to now been used without any problems or faults for the Curry Cup season and more recently the CLT 20/20 cricket championship. In 2013 the SABC came on board and by winning a tender, B&I was asked to install permanent fibre cables and power cables in FNB(Soccer City) and Orlando Stadium in Soweto .
Next year in 2014 SuperSport will budget for more major stadiums to be installed with permanent fibre cable and B&I will deliver the same professional service as with the last six stadiums.
The same team from B&I that installed the last six stadiums will be used for this tender and it also includes the power cables installation and the fibre splicing.