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9/4/09 - The growing number of online gambling companies taking up residence on the Isle of Man to make the most of its advanced financial and technical infrastructure and benevolent tax regime, will have the added comfort of one of the most advanced disaster recovery systems in Europe following recent developments on the island. 
Manx Telecom, a wholly owned subsidiary of O2 and part of the Telefónica Group of companies, has been licensed as an approved e-Gaming Disaster Recovery Provider by the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission, the company announced this week. The licence will enable the company to provide e-Gaming clients with disaster recovery facilities under the Island’s legislation covering online gaming.
Established in 1889, Manx Telecom is the Island’s main provider of fixed, mobile, internet and wholesale carrier telecom networks, and was the first company on-island to provide data centre services. The company’s involvement in e-Gaming also goes back to the earliest days of the sector, having hosted the first ever live e-Gaming sites to register with the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission, in 2001.
Since then, the utility has gone on to invest heavily - a reported GBP 120 million - in the Island’s data centre and telecommunications infrastructure, putting the island firmly on the e-Gaming map, and attracting several global e-Gaming companies including the world’s largest poker operator “PokerStars” to its purpose built data hosting and disaster recovery facilities.
“Currently, we provide data centre co-location, fully managed hosted platforms, and disaster recovery, services for a wide range of customers in variety of industry sectors,” says Stephen Kane, e-Gaming and e-Business Development Manager at Manx Telecom.
“However, e-Gaming is somewhat different in that it is a regulated business. Although we have provided data centre solutions and services for some years now to companies with full Isle of Man e-Gaming Licences, the introduction by the Gambling Supervision Commission of a new Disaster Recovery Licence is a great step forward. The Isle of Man, in particular, has lead with way with flexible and pragmatic e-Gaming legislation under which e-Gaming companies can put effective disaster recovery arrangements in place, and we are pleased to be able to offer e-Gaming clients this facility”.
The utility's new licence will cover all its data centre operations on-Island, enabling it to provide disaster recovery services to e-Gaming businesses worldwide. Manx Telecom owns and operates a number of data centre sites on and off Island, including the Island’s only purpose built data hosting facility. Staffed by qualified technicians around the clock and all year it is designed to deliver 99.999 percent “uptime” to hosted customers.
The company boasts that its data centre services have achieved 100 percent availability for over 10 years, and its more recently installed high capacity off-Island networks have achieved 100 percent availability for over two years.
Garth Kimber, Head of e-Gaming Development at the Isle of Man Department for Trade and Industry, said, “The Island continues to attract e-Gaming companies, due in part to our approach to licensing. Manx Telecom has made significant investments, and having an e-Gaming disaster recovery licence can only be good news for the company, and for the Island.”
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