PRESS RELEASE (Feb. 2008)
KPN's Rapid Response Brings Disaster Relief
 28 February 2008 – Incorporated in 1989, KPN Telecom NV is the largest telecommunications company in the Netherlands. It provides telephony, mobile and data services to business and residential consumers in the Netherlands, as well as Germany (E-Plus), Belgium (BASE) and Western Europe.
As well as its commercial and entertainment services, KPN also operates a series of fundraising activities that provide vital support for a number of international charities and relief campaigns.
Live Television Shows for Emergency Disaster Aid
Large-scale natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis unite the efforts of many relief agencies. KPN has provided telephony services for a number of live televised programmes which aim to raise money for the casualties of such disasters and for extensive restoration projects. During each show, KPN receives tens of thousands of calls from people pledging donations.
KPN is well equipped to handle the extremely high quantities of calls. The company has implemented Redwood’s Next Generation Network DNX media gateway, resulting in the Netherlands’ largest mass calling solution.
‘Our mass calling service works in tandem with a live television broadcast and must handle the voice calls and text messages that come in during a strict time period. If the platform collapses in that timeframe, we are in trouble,’ says Joop van der Wijngaard, Manager, Voice, KPN. ‘It's essential we have the infrastructure in place to support this volume of calls. Reliability is critical to our business. We had very high expectations and we haven’t been disappointed.’
Lottery Services Funding International Relief Projects
In addition to emergency disaster relief campaigns, the mass calling platform is used to support international relief projects on an ongoing basis, in conjunction with national lottery organisations. KPN handles the phone calls for millions of lottery entrants. A percentage of the money raised from ticket sales is used to support victims of famine, war and disease, providing education, housing and a better standard of living for people in developing countries.
The televised lottery programmes show how lottery ticket money supports these charitable causes, giving viewers the feel-good factor of helping.
Ongoing Medical Research Programme
KPN’s DNX mass calling platform additionally handles the calls for a number of other services that raise money for medical research into conditions such as AIDS, cancer, kidney disease and heart failure.
The robust and scalable infrastructure of the Redwood DNX allows KPN to add new services and additional capacity without system redesign, allowing the company to look to the future and keep pace with the fast-moving telecommunications industry, at the same time as helping to save lives.
Further information on KPN can be viewed at http://www.kpn.com/. |
