Mexico. Vari participated in the design, development and installation of the entire fiber optic network for the transmission of audio, video and data that was used in the television transmission from one of the locations visited by Pope Francis on his recent trip to Mexico.
In Ecatepec, the space where the intervention was made and attended by 300,000 people, 34 delay towers were installed to which they had to send the fiber optic signal. Televisa delivered the main signal by SDI and Vari converted it into fiber optics and sent it to the entire network.
Abel García, Vari's fiber optic project coordinator, told AVI LATINOAMÉRICA that "It took approximately three weeks to do the entire installation. It was very hard work but very interesting. For this intervention we relied on the company Neutrik, which provided the more than six thousand meters of fiber optic cable that were used."
The project's numbers give a dimension of its size, which Abel Garcia refers to as a small town within a city:
- 40 hectares of surface were covered
- There were 34 quadrants of 100x100 and each housed eight thousand people.
- The main stage measured 70 meters wide by 30 deep and 25 meters high
- Six thousand meters of fiber optic cable were required
He added that people still do not trust 100% fiber optics for audio transmission because it is a new technology for this use. But that myth was broken with the visit of the hierarch of the Catholic Church and the transmission opened the doors to new projects using fiber optics.
