AT&T Supports Online Gaming (TechWeb)

AT&T Inc.'s Enterprise Hosting Services appointed a team of employees who cater to online gamers, the company said Thursday.

The group will support network and services required to deliver gamers a better online experience, said Chris Costello, director of manage hosting products and utility computing services.

AT&T put together a dedicated team of 80 hosting sales people who understand requirements, application performance needs of gamers. They know that if a problem with the network occurs, it could potentially "drop thousands of users playing a game," Costello said. "And those users won't come back and play that game."

There are about 60 operations engineers that support the sales team to online gaming customers, such as Sony Online Entertainment LLC (SOE) and its multiplayer online gaming titles EverQuest, EverQuest II and PlanetSide.

Through AT&T's Internet Centers (IDCs), the carrier will provide the infrastructure that lets online gaming companies, such as Sony, deliver content. The company also set up a 24-hour customer service group to offer assistance as required.

Through AT&T's portal, customers gain a view into the management platform called iGEMS, or Integrated Global Enterprise Management System, to performance and identify faults in the system that may cause network or failure. "We've invested over $300 million during the past several years," Costello said. "It's the we use to manage all our services, so it includes hosting, networking, services over IP and call center applications."

AT&T often sends performance alerts through an e-mail enabled device, such as a cellular phone, to site managers keeping content sites informed.

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