Australia's Optus taps Nokia for five-year managed services agreement

Nokia and Optus have signed a five-year agreement under which Nokia will manage and maintain key components of Optus' network infrastructure, operations and field maintenance.

As part of the contract, Nokia and Optus will develop a Network Operations Centre (NOC), building on global best practices and leveraging local talent to deliver higher performance networks.

Consumers are increasingly demanding faster networks and seamless connectivity, and operators need to keep pace with these demands without disrupting ongoing operations.

To deliver on these growing needs while enhancing its services and ensuring operations efficiency, Optus will tap Nokia's Global Delivery Model to streamline its network operations. Nokia will also leverage its extensive global services expertise to help Optus bundle, standardize and automate its processes.

Optus will benefit from reduced operational complexity. Nokia will also work with Optus to review its network structure and operations periodically to ensure Optus' competitive advantage and ability to respond to customers' evolving needs.

Nokia will provide network operations and software services, and deploy robotics, artificial intelligence and extreme automation to help Optus standardize and scale its operations, while Nokia Field Services will manage all components of work associated with mobile base station equipment and facilities.

Friedrich Trawoeger, head of Managed Services at Nokia, said: "We are pleased to work with Optus to help them use automation and other network management tools to further enhance the customer experience, operational capability and quality. This initiative is in keeping with Optus' vision to transform into a mobile-led, multimedia organization. We are leveraging the benefits of our unique Global Delivery Model, which brings together global expertise with local insights, to fully meet the needs of our customers."