Reliance Communications (RCOM) has awarded a seven-year contract to Ericsson for managing its network across 11 circles in the country. As per the contract, Ericsson will manage about 150,000 km of fibre, multi-vendor and multi-technology networks, namely CDMA, GSM (2G and 3G), and wireline across these circles. Earlier, these circles in the eastern and southern regions of the country were being managed by France-based Alcatel-Lucent.
Ericsson will streamline RCOM?s operations by bringing all aspects of fibre, mobile networks and wireline access networks to the operator?s wireless and Global Enterprise Business, across differentiated product lines. Ericsson will deliver world-class customer experience using centralised network operations center and bring in operational efficiencies and optimisation 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 RCOM to identify opportunities to introduce new services and expand its existing businesses to help realise the full potential of its network. The contract is an extension of the deal signed in 2013 by Ericsson and RCOM to manage the latter?s network in the other 11 circles in the northern and western regions of India for eight years. Under the previous deal, 100,000 km of fibre and other related mobile infrastructure along with 6,000 employees was deployed by Ericsson. However, under the new contract, it will deploy about 7,000-8,000 employees in these circles.
With this new deal, Ericsson will now be responsible for managing RCOM?s pan-India network.
Suresh Rangachar, Head of Commercial, RCOM 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 optimised costs.?
Magnus Mandersson, Executive Vice President and Head of Business Unit Global Services, Ericsson, said; ?We are excited to partner with RCOM 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 the 22 circles.?
