Avaya Converges on World Cup

LEIPZIG, Germany -- Avaya Inc. (NYSE:AV), a leading global provider of business communication applications, systems and services today announced that it has completed the converged communication network that will power operations at the Final Draw for the 2006 FIFA World Cup, the first in a series of events that will place extremely high demand on the performance of the Avaya network throughout the FIFA World Cup in June, 2006. The Final Draw takes place today at the Messe Leipzig conference centre in Germany and will be viewed by up to 350 million people worldwide who will tune in to see which teams will play each other in the Finals to take place in Germany next summer.

Attending the draw night celebrations will be over 1500 guests including VIPs from the worlds of football and celebrity, leading FIFA representatives, country dignitaries and other members of the Football Federation. Also, there will be mass media coverage of the event with 1,600 members of the global media expected to attend or be accredited. To ensure the exacting requirements are met, the converged network has been developed over a period of nine weeks by a team of over 40 Avaya employees working on site. The network, which will stay live for 11 days, took three days to activate has been live from the 1st December.

In the weeks of run-up activities to the event, the Avaya network has already provided access and support to over 500 users including FIFA and Messe employees, customers, partners, media and other guests of the draw. Avaya has reduced the cost of call traffic over the network and enabled attendees, FIFA employees and accredited users to work flexibly and access the network from a variety of locations within the Messe complex. Seven major conference rooms are fully equipped with Avaya AP8 Wireless Access technology.

To further increase productivity, FIFA staff will be equipped with Avaya's Extension to Cellular mobility application, so they can benefit from one business number while being able to make and receive calls, and use applications on either a desk phone or mobile handset. The network is fully interoperable and open-standard based. As a signal of confidence in the Avaya technology, the Messe Leipzig has purchased Avaya's voice solution for permanent installation following the Final Draw for the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

Doug Gardner, Managing Director, Avaya's Global FIFA Programme said: "Over the past four years we have been able to use our experience of managing and delivering enterprise converged networks to deliver state of the art communication capabilities for FIFA." He continued: "This network is our most scalable and advanced to date, combining full flexibility with first-class performance and durability. Avaya is pulling out all the stops to develop the capabilities and reach of the Final Draw network to make this our strongest and most innovative solution to date."

Avaya Inc.