India's Reliance Comm engages Ericsson for nationwide Managed Services contract

Reliance Communications Limited has signed a seven-year full-scope managed services agreement with Ericsson to operate and manage their wireline and wireless networks across India. Ericsson will also take over responsibility for the field maintenance, network operations and operational planning of Reliance Communications' 2G, CDMA and 3G mobile networks.

This strategic pan-Indian deal is an expansion of the existing agreement, which enables Ericsson to deepen its partnership with Reliance Communication and extends its managed services footprint nationwide across all the 22 circles in India. This is the first pan-Indian managed services deal for Ericsson.

Ericsson will streamline Reliance Communication's operations by bringing all aspects of fiber, mobile networks and wireline access networks to Reliance Communications' wireless and Global Enterprise Business, across differentiated product lines. Ericsson will deliver world-class customer experience using Centralized Network Operations Center and bring in operational efficiencies and optimization using its global expertise.

Ericsson will be responsible for network operations, with the goal of increasing customer satisfaction and retention. Ericsson will also work closely with Reliance Communications to identify opportunities to introduce new services and expand its existing businesses to help realize the full potential of its network. The integration is effective as of December 1, 2014.

Suresh Rangachar, Head of Commercial, Reliance Communications, said: "We are happy to announce our partnership with Ericsson to manage our wireline and wireless network on a pan-Indian basis.  Given the complexity of networks and the growing performance expectations from customers, we are banking on the experience, innovation and technical expertise of Ericsson to improve the productivity of our network and ensure customer satisfaction and retention by delivering superior network performance and service quality at optimized costs."

Magnus Mandersson, Executive Vice President and Head of Business Unit Global Services, Ericsson, said; "We are excited to partner with Reliance Communications for this strategic multi-technology managed services deal. We have been managing their networks in north and west and are now pleased to extend this support to all 22 Circles.

"The growing uptake in the use of new technologies requires an increased focus on customer experience management, and that will be our focus as we take on this mandate. This is the first pan-Indian managed services deal for Ericsson and will help us consolidate our managed services leadership in India".

Reliance Communications' infrastructure covers over 150,000 km of fiber, 2G/3G/CDMA mobile network, wireline access and enterprise network in 22 telecom circles, across India and includes 21,000 towns and 400,000 villages to which it offers converged services including voice, data and video.