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Avaya IP Telephony from NSC is No Gamble for Betfair


WEBWIRE

Redundancy a key requirement for world’s leading online betting exchange

17-Aug-2006 - Hobart, AUSTRALIA - Work is nearing completion on the sophisticated telephone betting operation being established in Hobart for Betfair, the world’s leading online betting exchange. The 60 seat contact centre, scheduled to go live in June 2006, is currently being deployed by NSC Enterprise Solutions and is based on the latest IP Telephony and contact centre technology from Avaya Inc. (NYSE:AV), a leading global provider of business communications software, systems and services.

Betfair UK entered into a joint venture agreement with Publishing and Broadcasting Limited (PBL), in July 2004. The licence to set up Australia’s first betting exchange was granted in February 2006 by the Tasmanian Gaming Commission. At this time, Betfair stated its intention to hire around 150 staff in Tasmania and invest approximately $10 million in infrastructure within the first two years of operation.

Betfair enables punters to choose their own odds and bet against each other. In the UK, the company processes around five million transactions a day and more than 300 bets a second. With this high volume of transactions, the right technology is crucial.

In addition to the Internet, Betfair has a growing telephone betting operation. In Australia, the telephone operation is currently being set up in Hobart using the latest IP Telephony communications equipment from Avaya with the design, implementation and support being delivered by leading solutions integrator, NSC Enterprise Solutions Pty Ltd.

NSC is deploying a high availability Avaya S8700 Communications Manager with Elite Call Management system and Intuity messaging. In the initial stages, Betfair will use a hybrid solution combining IP and digital handsets with agents using CallMaster digital handsets.

“We chose NSC to implement the market leading Avaya technology because we knew the company was able to meet our demanding timescales and deliver the service as promised,” said Paul Moss, Betfair Australia’s director of infrastructure. “We are seeing constant growth at Betfair.com and, with the launch of the new Australian venture and a busy sporting season ahead, it was imperative the technologies were in place to manage the needs of our growing customer base as well as our ability to match the expectations of our existing users.”

“We prefer to work with a single company wherever possible, one that can provide us with a comprehensive solution and NSC fulfilled those needs,” he said.

When dealing with financial transactions, legislation demands all calls are recorded. NSC is working with Betfair to install a NICE recording solution on 60 seats with the ability for 15 reviewers to playback and real time monitor.

Designed for mission critical operations requiring continuous recording of all calls, the NICE solution stores all incoming and outgoing calls and transaction details in a comprehensive database, which provides quick retrieval as and when required.

Due to the nature of Betfair’s business, reliability of the communications infrastructure is paramount. The company operates a dual carrier model to protect against any downtime.

“Processing more than 300 bets a second means we have unique requirements for infrastructure resilience and uptime. It was necessary therefore to provide a redundant connection to our telephony system which was achieved using transit from both Optus and Telstra,” said Mr Moss.

As well as the main trunk-side recording solution a redundant system is on stand-by mode connected to the second carrier in case of network failure. So, if either the carrier trunks fail or the call logger fails, all calls will still be recorded on the redundant call logging system.

Possible future plans include the deployment of an IP recording solution which will be installed when Betfair links the Hobart system back to London using an international IP Trunk.

“Betfair’s unique telephony requirements have resulted in a best-of-breed solution which raises the bar in reliability and customer service,” said Craig Neil, managing director, NSC Enterprise Solutions. “With 37% of the market, NSC is leading the way in the design, implementation and maintenance of today’s mission-critical contact centre.”

About Betfair
Betfair (www.betfair.com) is the world’s leading betting exchange allowing punters to bet at prices set by other punter rather than those dictated to them by a bookmaker. Betfair was launched in the UK in June 2000. At peak times the exchange matches up to 12,000 bets a minute.

About NSC
For more than 16 years, the NSC Group, a wholly Australian owned and operated company, has specialised in the design, implementation, management, and maintenance of highly sophisticated IP Telephony solutions. The NSC Group has two major subsidiaries - NSC Enterprise Solutions which offers business services, applications and solutions for converged voice and data networks, contact centres, CTI, customer relationship management, interactive voice response, unified messaging, outbound diallers and multi-service networks and NSC Carrier Technologies which was established in response to the growing number of projects involving the supply and integration of specialised technologies to the carrier market. Further information is available at www.nsc.net.au

About Avaya
Avaya Inc. designs, builds and manages communications networks for more than 1 million businesses worldwide, including over 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500®. Focused on businesses large to small, Avaya is a world leader in secure and reliable Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony systems and communications software applications and services.

Driving the convergence of voice and data communications with business applications - and distinguished by comprehensive worldwide services -Avaya helps customers leverage existing and new networks to achieve superior business results. For more information visit the Avaya website: www.avaya.com.



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