RCom, Ericsson sign $1 bn managed services deal

BANGALORE, INDIA: Telecommunications service provider Reliance Communications has signed a eight-year managed services agreement with Ericsson for $1 billion to operate and manage wireline and wireless networks in Northern and Western states of India.

As per the contract, Ericsson will manage operations across wireline and wireless networks and will be responsible for field maintenance, network operations and operational planning of Reliance Communications' 2G, CDMA and 3G mobile networks.

Gurdeep Singh, chief executive officer, Wireless Business, Reliance Communications, said: "Given the complexity of network increasing with platforms, technologies and application offerings, we are banking on the experience, innovation and technical expertise of Ericsson to improve the productivity of our network and ensure that it delivers to its full potential. We are confident that they will exceed the expectations of our customers through optimization of resources and provide us cost effective solutions."

Reliance Communications' infrastructure covers 24,000 towns and 6,00,000 villages in India to which it offers converged services including voice, data and video.

Ericsson will streamline Reliance Communication's operations by bringing fiber, tower operations, wireless networks and wireline access networks to RCom's wireless and global enterprise business, across various product lines.

Magnus Mandersson, executive vice president and head, Business Unit Global Services, Ericsson, said: "The increasing uptake of new technologies requires an increased focus on customer experience management in the hyper competitive and highly dynamic Indian telecom market. With this partnership Reliance will increase focus on their core business and innovation. We are pleased to welcome more than 5,000 employees from Reliance Communications who will join us and support our long term commitment to India's ICT market."