Preparations are underway in Germany to ready the converged voice and data infrastructure that will connect local FIFA organizers, stadiums, media, officials and thousands of volunteers during the 2006 FIFA World Cup), Avaya has announced.
Avaya Inc. is the official converged communications provider of the 2006 FIFA World Cup.
The 2006 FIFA World Cup will be hosted in twelve cities across Germany, including Berlin, Cologne, Dortmund, Frankfurt, Gelsenkirchen, Hamburg, Hanover, Kaiserslautern, Leipzig, Munich, Nuremberg and Stuttgart. The final will be played in Berlin.
With Avaya products already in place in half of 2006 FIFA German Local Organizing Committee (LOC) venue offices, the remaining six sites will be completed over the next month. A single network based on Avaya Communication Manager traveling over an ATM wide area network (WAN) provided by Deutsche Telecom will connect all the offices, and soon be pressed into play to support the FIFA Confederations Cup Germany 2005 in June.
The FIFA Confederations Cup Germany 2005 is considered the final test for some national teams before next year's big event.
According to industry observer Daniel Thomas, the World Cup Organizing Committee plans to work closer with local authorities using combined Internet telephony and data networks in offices around the country. Local networks will connect to FIFAs Avaya backbone to help the committee and city officials share information on issues such as safety, traffic congestion and security, in the build-up to the football tournament.
Avaya has also won a contract to install a converged voice and data network at the Frankfurt Waldstadion, which will host one of the World Cup quarter-finals and the final of the Confederations Cup.
Wireless access points are also being installed around the ground, allowing journalists and photographers to e-mail back reports during the match.
New wireless functionality in digital cameras means photographers will be able to use wireless points in the stadium to transfer images straight from the pitch side, said Doug Gardner, managing director of Avayas FIFA World Cup program.
Redundant processors, networks and power supplies will also be installed to prevent downtime during the tournament.
The Frankfurt deal follows the installation of voice-over IP and data networks by Avaya at Cologne Stadium, which will also host World Cup fixtures.
Last month, Germanys football authorities announced plans to embed radio frequency identification tags in tickets issued to World Cup fans later this year.
David Sims is contributing editor and CRM Alert columnist for TMCnet.
To discover how contact centers can save money and increase productivity by making the switch to IP Telephony, be sure to attend TMC's IP Contact Center Summit May 24-26, 2005, in Dallas, Texas.
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