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| The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) launched a project in 2000 to establish Europe's largest football web portal, anticipating the increasing demands of its rapidly growing Internet user base due to skyrocketing interest in European football. NTT Com's Answer UEFA went looking for a web hosting partner with the ability to provide powerful, leading-edge Internet infrastructure, expertise in video streaming and the capacity to accommodate high-volume access from all over the world. In the end, it selected Verio Inc., the wholly owned subsidiary of NTT Com, to host uefa.com in 2001. The Smart Content Delivery and global Tier 1 IP backbone provided the perfect solution UEFA was looking for. Smart Content Delivery connects end users to the nearest cache server located in the NTT/VERIO Global IP Network. The service dramatically reduces connection and download latency to realize high-quality content distribution in Europe, the U.S. and Asia. NTT Com has provided web hosting and other services in support of the UEFA Cup finals in 2002 and 2003 and UEFA Super Cup finals from 2001 to 2003. It has established a stable network that has grown right along with the site's rapidly rising traffic. According to Alexandre Fourtoy, UEFA's new media CEO, "NTT/VERIO allows room for increased bandwidth and scalability." Today, the site routinely handles more than four million hits on match days. Further Expansion NTT Com's partnership with UEFA was further broadened last February when it became the official IT partner of the 2004 UEFA European Football ChampionshipTM in Portugal to be held June 12 - July 4 next year. According to UEFA Honorary Treasurer and Executive Committee Member Mathieu Sprengers, "Having worked closely with NTT Com for other events, UEFA is confident that the expertise and support it will provide will make the tournament in Portugal a huge success, and will help bring the UEFA European Football Championship closer to football fans all over the world." European Football for Japanese Fans Japanese interest in European football is also strong, particularly now that many Japanese players have joined the ranks of European teams. UEFA, working in close partnership with NTT Com, responded to this demand by launching jp.uefa.com as its long-awaited Japanese-language site in February 2003. NTT Com's total solution includes not only site infrastructure such as hosting and global IP network, but also the development of original Japanese content, site marketing and more. Thanks to Smart Content Delivery, match highlights and schedules, teams and players, breaking news and much more from uefa.com are available in Japanese on jp.uefa.com. In the foreseeable future, NTT Com will begin offering original pay-per-access content and a mobile web site in cooperation with NTT DoCoMo, the nation's leading mobile communications company. In the meantime, NTT Com looks forward to continuing to support uefa.com content and services, currently available in eight languages, to the satisfaction of European football fans worldwide. |
