Avaya Boosts Fan Engagement in Montreal's Bell Centre

MONTREAL, QC--(Marketwired - Oct 1, 2015) -

• Avaya and Montreal's Bell Centre aim to deliver one of the most high-tech fan experiences in North America
• Avaya's virtualized, flexible network supports venue's many goals, including high-capacity, security for wireless access, fast Wi-Fi connection times and unmatched multicast scalability to support any IP video distribution or streams

Avaya, a global leader in business communications software, systems and services and the Bell Centre, home to one of the National Hockey League's most storied franchise, the Montreal Canadiens, today announced that Avaya networking technology has been installed throughout the arena in order to deliver one of the most high-tech fan experiences in the league.

Hosting more than 175 events per year, Montreal's Bell Centre welcomes one million visitors annually with 21,000 seats, making it the largest hockey arena in North America and the third busiest event venue in the world. The venue morphs to accommodate everything from Canadiens' hockey games to concerts and shows on ice. Therefore, it must adapt to different technology requirements every day so that everything runs smoothly and it needs a flexible, secure and powerful network to handle any situation.

The Bell Centre, which has relied on Avaya for network connectivity for more than a decade, turned to Avaya for the next phase in its unified digital strategy: upgrading the network and fortifying wireless capabilities. Working closely with the venue, Avaya architected a virtualized, flexible network to support the facilities' many needs, including high-capacity, security for wireless access, fast Wi-Fi connection times and multicast support for IP video streams known as SDN Fx architecture.

Now running Avaya Fabric Connect at the core of the network -- with the key features of Virtual IST, IP shortcuts and IP multicast to simplify and provide a resilient and high-performance network -- the Bell Centre can concentrate on providing the ultimate fan experience with nearly 500 wireless access points with double radios ensuring that visitors get Wi-Fi no matter where they are in the facility.

Ubiquitous wireless access also supports the venue's "ticketless" entry, a method requested by a number of performers so that fans are able to buy tickets at face value, rather than at inflated resale prices. With ticketless entry, event attendees simply present the credit card they used to buy their tickets and a valid form of identification. A gate attendant swipes the card to verify the tickets, and the guest is admitted and on their way.