A mass calling system from Telsis has set a new world record by answering more than 101 million voting and competition calls in 2003, putting the Swedish telco Telia in the record books for the second time in two years. The system also helped Telia take the record in 2002 with 87 million calls. With Sweden’s population at just nine million, it is the equivalent of more than 11 calls from everyone in the country. The new total saw peak rates of some 1,600 calls per second being answered by Telia’s MegaCall service in response to live television and other interactive events. It comes after a network-wide capacity increase by supplier Telsis, taking the system's capacity to more than 2,500 calls per second.

Since entering service, the Telsis system at Telia has answered a total of more than 500 million premium rate calls. Much of the 2003 increase is being attributed to the introduction in Sweden of a new television format, CallTV, in which viewers compete by telephone for progressively larger cash prizes.

Crucial to the smooth running of such events is the way the Telsis Mass Calling system captures and stores information entered by callers. This allows automated selection of a cross-section of contestants who then receive an invitation to enter subsequent stages of a competition.

In addition to the annual records, the Mass Calling system scored a further world first when it handled successfully more than five million calls – the equivalent of more than half Sweden’s population dialling in – during a single evening’s prime time television. But Telia’s mass calling product manager, Stewe Wahlström, believes there is still room for more.

“CallTV is a winning formula for interactive television and it is vitally important that we have the technical infrastructure in place to support it,” he says. “For more than six years Telsis has helped keep us at the forefront of mass calling. Yet even with the records already achieved, the system still has plenty of capacity for growth.”

Telsis Ocean fastIP IVR systems are installed at every transit node on Telia’s network, making for optimum traffic loadings and resilience. The distributed deployment means that very large peaks of mass calls can be answered without impacting routine voice and data traffic. Call management and data collection is handled centrally by a Telsis Ocean fastSCP service control point.

Mass calling places unique demands on infrastructure. While conventional voice networks are provisioned and configured for random call handling, mass calling creates high volume synchronised call arrival.

Each individual Telsis Ocean fastIP IVR platform supports up to 120 simultaneous calls, delivering the same high quality of audio and speed of response as when handling just a single call. Fully carrier-grade and programmable, it holds up to 6000 hours of high quality audio combined with dedicated DTMF and voice detection and start-at-the-beginning playback on every channel. These and other factors make it substantially more powerful and capable than conventional IVR technology.

With its headquarters, research and production site in the UK, Telsis (www.telsis.com) has sales and support operations in France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain, Singapore and Australia. The company offers a range of carrier-grade infrastructure platforms, including intelligent SMS Routers, IN service control points, switches and advanced IVR solutions that support a wide variety of innovative value-added text and voice services. Telsis products are in use with major fixed and mobile network operators around the world.

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Further editorial information and product images:
Telsis Ltd – Adrian Swatridge + 44 (0) 1489 76 00 00 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Sage Partnership – Kevin Fiske + 44 (0) 1189 34 40 07