Reliance Communications and Ericsson sign USD 1 billion managed services contract for wireline and wireless networks for North and West India
* Covers 100,000 km of fiber and mobile infrastructure in 11 telecom circles,
across North and West of India, including Delhi and Mumbai
* Will lead to productive integration of 5,000 employees by moving them to
Ericsson - providing them global opportunities
* Integrated management to deliver world class customer experience using
global expertise and bringing in operational efficiencies and cost
optimization
Reliance Communications Limited, India's fully integrated telecommunications
service provider, today signed an eight-year full-scope managed services
agreement with Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) for USD 1 billion to operate and manage
the wireline and wireless networks in the Northern and Western states of India.
As per the contract, Ericsson will manage the day to day operations across
wireline and wireless networks and will take over responsibility for field
maintenance, network operations and operational planning of Reliance
Communications 2G, CDMA and 3G mobile networks. This agreement is aimed to meet
the fast evolving customer demand for communications applications and services
in one of the world's most dynamic telecom markets.
Reliance Communications will benefit from Ericsson's proven world-class
processes, methods and tools and the partnership will allow Reliance
Communications to free up resources to focus on user experience, as well as
improving innovation power, agility and speed across the specified geographies.
Reliance Communications' infrastructure covers 24,000 towns and 600,000 villages
in India to which it offers converged services including voice, data and video.
This is one of the first converged wireless and wireline managed services
contract in India, and one of only a handful in the world. Ericsson will
streamline Reliance Communications' operations by bringing all aspects of fiber,
tower operations, wireless networks and wireline access networks to Reliance
Communications' wireless and global enterprise business, across differentiated
product lines. Ericsson will also drive a modernization of the tools, processes
and best practices that are applied across the business resulting in operational
efficiencies by managing cost through consolidation.
Commenting on the agreement, Gurdeep Singh, Chief Executive Officer - Wireless
Business, Reliance Communications said, "We are happy to announce our
partnership with Ericsson to manage our wireline and wireless network enabling
us to provide a higher level of customer experience in terms of network and
services. 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."
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. 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 who
will join us from Reliance Communications and support our long term commitment
to India's ICT market."
This agreement will be driven by defined service level agreement governance.
Ericsson will be responsible for improving network performance and ultimately
service quality, 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.
"This partnership will enable our enterprise customers to deploy state-of-the-
art data services on our integrated network through the global expertise of
Ericsson. This is one of the first times that wireless and wireline enterprise
network is being outsourced to deliver world-class service and performance
assurance," added Punit Garg, Chief Executive Officer, Global and Enterprise
Business, Reliance Communications.
Reliance Communications will benefit from Ericsson's proven world-class
processes, methods and tools and the partnership will allow Reliance
Communications to free up resources to focus on user experience, as well as
improving innovation power, agility and speed across the specified geographies.
NOTES TO EDITORS
Bio and photo of Magnus Mandersson:
http://www.ericsson.com/thecompany/corporate_governance/company_management/magnu
s_mandersson
About Reliance Communications
Reliance Communications Limited founded by the late Shri Dhirubhai H Ambani
(1932-2002) is the flagship company of the Reliance Group. The Reliance Group
currently has a net worth in excess of Rs. 90,000 crore (US$ 17.7 billion), cash
flows of Rs. 8,000 crore (US$ 1.6 billion), net profit of Rs. 3,200 crore (US$
0.6 billion).
Reliance Communications is India's foremost and truly integrated
telecommunications service provider. The Company, with a customer base of about
130 million including over 2.5 million individual overseas retail customers,
ranks among the Top 6 Telecom companies in the world by number of customers in a
single country. Reliance Communications corporate clientele includes over
35,000 Indian and multinational corporations including small and medium
enterprises and over 800 global, regional and domestic carriers.
Reliance Communications has established a pan-India, next generation, integrated
(wireless and wireline), convergent (voice, data and video) digital network that
is capable of supporting best-of-class services spanning the entire
communications value chain, covering over 24,000 towns and 600,000 villages.
Reliance Communications owns and operates the world's largest next generation IP
enabled connectivity infrastructure, comprising over 277,000 kilometers of fibre
optic cable systems in India, USA, Europe, Middle East and the Asia Pacific
region.
Reliance Communications Limited, Registered Office: H, Block, 1st Floor,
Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City, Navi Mumbai - 400Â 710
About Ericsson
Download high-resolution photos and broadcast-quality video at
www.ericsson.com/press
Ericsson is the world's leading provider of communications technology and
services. We are enabling the Networked Society with efficient real-time
solutions that allow us all to study, work and live our lives more freely, in
sustainable societies around the world.
Our offering comprises services, software and infrastructure within Information
and Communications Technology for telecom operators and other industries. Today
more than 40 percent of the world's mobile traffic goes through Ericsson
networks and we support customers' networks servicing more than 2.5 billion
subscribers.
We operate in 180 countries and employ more than 100,000 people. Founded in
1876, Ericsson is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2011 the company's net
sales were SEK 226.9 billion (USD 35.0 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ
OMX, Stockholm and NASDAQ, New York stock exchanges.
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Reliance Communications Press release PDF:
http://hugin.info/1061/R/1676913/546745.pdf
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Source: Ericsson via Thomson Reuters ONE
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