Geo Networks(Geo), a provider of fibre networks offerings and services, has signed a 10-year deal to deploy and manage a dedicated fibre network for eGaming company bet365.

Geo said that its fibre network would enable bet365 to respond to increased network demands with a scalable, reliable and future-proofed offering. The fibre network will offer improved latency of less than 3 milliseconds, said the company. According to the deal, a £3m fibre network will be deployed between bet365’s key UK data centres in Stoke, Manchester, Heathrow and the City of London.

bet365 Networks and Security chief Neil Selby said the company needed a strong and low-latency network that could provide service to multiple players simultaneously online.

"The nature of our business requires a network that can deal with tremendous spikes in traffic, but with Geo we have the additional benefit of owning our network and having a huge degree of control. Critical to us was accommodating all perceived growth prospects, leveraging the business continuity aspects and delivering a smooth user experience," Selby added.

Geo said that the network will not only provide scaling up to terabit capacity, the topology also significantly enhances bet365’s business continuity strategy by eradicating a single point of failure. With Geo’s network location in London’s sewers and nationally tracking the gas mains, bet365 will benefit from a resilient and secure system, eliminating the problem of service interruptions synonymous with shared platforms, said the company.

Geo chief executive Chris Smedley said that the company will ensure that bet365 will have the capacity to provide its players with uninterrupted access to online services and the infrastructure to react to peaks in demand.

"The eGaming industry presents a huge area for growth as it needs a significant amount of network capacity. This is a new breed of customer for Geo and we are very much looking forward to developing our experience in the eGaming industry," said Smedley.

The network is expected to go live with an initial equipped capacity of over 130Gbps at the turn of the year, Geo said.