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January 18, 2006

Showtime Arabia enhances customer service through Avaya intelligent communications

Dubai, UAE — Showtime Arabia is enhancing its customer service offering in the Middle East through the deployment of an Internet Protocol (IP) based contact center solution from Avaya Inc. (NYSE:AV), a leading global provider of business communications applications, systems and services.

Avaya business partner EMW will oversee the project, which will enable Showtime Arabia to boost its inbound and outbound communications with subscribers in 20 different countries.

'As a leading pay TV provider in the region, we offer our subscribers a choice of 49 channels and as we offer great entertainment we must also support it with great customer service. One of our main channels of communication is through telephony. The new Avaya contact center solution will support both the acquisition and retention of subscribers in the region while providing a consistently superior level of availability and reliability. The new Avaya solution leverages some of our existing IT resources and will make our customer interaction more efficient. This will also deliver cost savings for Showtime Arabia from the newly implemented system,'

said Steven MacDiarmid, Vice President - Regional Operations and Customer Management at Showtime Arabia.

Given the twenty-four hour nature of Showtime Arabia's business, the company is operating across the Middle East to support subscribers. The new Avaya system will empower Showtime Arabia's contact center staff to make more informed customer care decisions driven by detailed knowledge about each customer, which will be available on hand during each service call.

The flexibility of the Avaya system has also helped Showtime Arabia extend a variety of new services to employees. Staff members who work in the satellite offices can take advantage of the same features and functionality available at headquarters, therefore maintaining consistent access to all related databases and information to better serve customers.

The Avaya IP telephony contact center system is designed and being managed by EMW, a silver-certified Avaya business partner that provides smart convergence solutions with an emphasis on call center integration, mobility and highly secure networks. The Avaya IP telephony contact center system for Showtime includes the following elements:

• Avaya Communication Manager
• Avaya Proactive Contact Management
• Avaya Interactive Response (IR)
• Modular Messaging

'The Middle East's television and entertainment market has become increasingly competitive, and enhanced customer service is a critical way for Showtime Arabia to differentiate itself in the minds of viewers and serve customers better' said Nidal Abou-Ltaif, managing director for Avaya in the Middle East and North Africa. 'The result that Showtime Arabia's new Avaya-based contact center can deliver is a more unified sales, marketing, and customer care operation that links the company's customer service agents, branch office employees and entertainment experts across all of its locations in the region.'

About EMW

EMW was founded in 1995 by engineers and managers who formerly held senior positions in well known telecommunications and information technology companies to pursue their vision for this new company.

Our core business is providing information and communication technology services in the areas of planning, engineering and implementation; project and program management; systems integration; operations and maintenance; and training. Our competencies range over all aspects of inside and outside plant; feeder, access and inter-office networks; switching, transmission, multiplexing and data communications equipment; network management, operations support, and asset management systems; information assurance; web enabling; applications software; and beyond. While staying abreast of today’s technologies, we keep a watchful eye on technology trends, and are very serious about future-proofing our solutions.

We play in the global marketplace, and are proud to serve a wide spectrum of distinguished clients from defense and government agencies, as well as commercial enterprise. Our watchwords are competency, innovation, integrity, and—above all—respect and care for the customer.

For additional information, please contact:

Trey Jones
EMW, Incorporated
13873 Park Center Road
Suite 225
Herndon, VA 20171

tjones@emw.com
Tel: +1 (703) 273-5801