Verizon partners Indycar, to test multicast LTE at track

Indycar announced a multi-year agreement with Verizon that will see North America’s premier open-wheel racing championship named the Verizon Indycar Series. The partnership, which aligns the motorsports series with Verizon’s technical expertise, will implement and nurture compelling programmes to benefit fans, the series, teams, commercial partners and race venues. Verizon will also continue its sponsorship of the Verizon P1 Award, which is presented to the Verizon Indycar Series pole winner in each race. The multi-faceted plan between Verizon and Indycar to link sports, entertainment and technology will begin at the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg, which kicks off the 18-race Indycar season 30 March.

The collaboration includes significant network coverage upgrades to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as part of its Project 100 initiative; short- and long-term technology enhancements to Indycar Race Control; the addition of pit lane monitors; and enhanced connectivity for spectators at each domestic race venue.

Verizon will also deploy its LTE Multicast platform at racetracks in the future to complement the Verizon Indycar 14 app and Indycar.com, the official website of Indycar. The emerging technology delivers rich multi-faceted multimedia content to multiple devices at once rather than sending it in a separate stream to each user. The operator is working with Ericsson and Qualcomm to deploy the multicast technology, and the two demonstrated the system in recent weeks at the Indy Motor Speedway. On 25 May during the main race, LTE multicast capabilities will be demonstrated via a series of cameras deployed both trackside and in-car providing IndyCar teams with real-time race visibility.