Mercedes F1 teams up with Tata Comms to boost competitiveness

Tata Communications has struck up a partnership with the Formula One Mercedes AMG Petronas team to provide trackside connectivity, allowing engineers to transfer data in real-time faster than before.

The Mercedes team will piggyback on Tata's global network, enabling them to transfer data from the car to the Mercedes headquarters in Brackley at up to 128GB per second or three times the current speed.

The primary form of connectivity being used will be Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS). At every race, Tata's professional services team will install, test and de-rig the required infrastructure and monitor systems.

Formula One is notorious for its rapid development cycles, and Mercedes is expecting this partnership to give it a competitive advantage as it tries to win the drivers and constructors championship in 2013.

Ross Brawn, team principal at Mercedes AMG Petronas emphasised the importance of transferring large portions of data quickly in the sport.

"Formula One relies on data and the ability to transfer our data from the track back to our factories in Brackley and Brixworth quickly and securely," he said in a statement.

"The Tata Communications global network will play a key role in the team's performance and our ability to react over the race weekends. That we will now be able to achieve our data transfer requirements three times faster is fantastic."

This isn't the first big Formula One related contract win for Tata Communications. In February 2012, the firm announced a multi-year technology service and marketing agreement with Formula One Management to deliver connectivity to all Formula One race locations.

The Indian firm also provides global hosting and content delivery for the official Formula One website.

Khidr Suleman is the Technical Editor at IT Pro, a role he has fulfilled since March 2012. He is responsible for the reviews section on the site  - so get in touch if you have a product you think might be of interest to the business world. He also covers the hardware and operating systems beats. Prior to joining IT Pro, Khidr worked as a reporter at Incisive Media. He studied law at the University of Reading and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Magazine Journalism and Online Writing at PMA Training.