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Leading Belgian Mobile Operator Mobistar Chooses Avaya to Upgrade Communications Network to IP Telephony

Posted on: Tuesday, 21 October 2003, 06:00 CDT

WATERLOO, Belgium, Oct. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Avaya Inc. , a leading global provider of communications networks and services for businesses, today announced that it has won a contract with Mobistar, Belgium's second largest mobile network operator and part of France Telecom Group. Mobistar will utilise Avaya's MultiVantage(TM) Communication Applications based solution to IP-enable its contact centres and locations across a total of eight Mobistar sites in Belgium including Brussels, Gent and Charleroi.

The network upgrade, scheduled for final completion at the end of this month, will support a total of 1,700 Mobistar employees. Of these, close to 600 contact centre agents who handle over 20.000 calls per day, have already been using Avaya's IP solution since the end of May. Mobistar expects the technology to provide a return on investment within three years of installation. This is largely due to a reduction in operations expenditure, the routing of calls between sites over a private network and with the software-centric aspect of IP, less maintenance on hardware and infrastructure.

Denis Guillemot, Customer Support Group Manager at Mobistar commented, "The Avaya IP technology will enable us to achieve key business objectives including a higher availability of the system to employees wherever they may be so that they in turn may better service our customers. An example of this is to cost effectively place Mobistar representatives at some of our major client sites. The IP functionality gives us this flexibility, enabling our people to work remotely at some of our larger customers. Once in place, they will be able to easily log onto the Mobistar network and have the same access to features and information as if they were physically in the office."

Ingrid De Latte, managing director, Avaya Belgium stated, "Mobistar has been an Avaya DEFINITY(R) G3R customer for over seven years. The new Avaya IP solution will provide Mobistar higher availability of information and back-up information on its system. Furthermore, internal calls run over internal private networks which will deliver cost savings."

The 570 Avaya IP telephones already deployed enable call centre agents to be more mobile by allowing them to simply "plug-in" at available network outlets in the same way they would with a portable PC. Mobistar's remaining digital phones will all be enabled to also run over IP. With IP Telephony in place, Mobistar will be able to easily and cost-effectively upgrade its call centres to create multimedia contact centres, as and when it chooses and in line with its business strategy."

As part of the agreement, Avaya Global Services is supplying a maintenance contract including 24/7 help desk as well as training support.

About Avaya

Avaya Inc. designs, builds and manages communications networks for more than 1 million businesses worldwide, including 90 percent of the FORTUNE 500(R). 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: http://www.avaya.com/.

About Mobistar

Mobistar (EURONEXT BRUSSELS: MOBB) is a major player in the world of telecommunications in Belgium, operating in the field of mobile communications and other markets with strong growth potential. In 2002, the total turnover of the Mobistar group passed the thousand million mark, reaching 1.034 thousand million euros. In 2002, the Group had a consolidated net annual profit of 102.4 million euros, as against a net loss of 30.5 million euros in 2001. The half-year results for the year 2003 show a growth in the total turnover of 14.7% compared to the first half in 2002.

At the end of June 2003, Mobistar had 1,671 employees and 2,417,956 active customers. Mobistar, one of the fastest-growing operators in Europe, is part of the Orange Group, which groups together all the international mobile activities of France Telecom. Mobistar is quoted on the Brussels Stock Exchange.

For more information visit the Mobistar website: http://www.mobistar.be/ .

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