Reliance Communications has awarded Ericsson a pan-India contract to provide managed services for the operator's extensive network.
The seven-year deal will involve Ericsson overtaking responsibility for operating and managing RCom's wireless and wireline networks in the nation.
The deal covers over 150,000km of fiber, 2G and 3G mobile networks, wireline services and enterprise networks.
Ericsson will also assume responsibility for maintenance, network opreations and operational planning for the operator's mobile networks. The vendor will provide customer experience management via a centralized NOC.
The contract marks Ericsson's first pan-India managed services contract. RCom's network footprint in India covers around 21,000 towns and 400,000 villages.
"We are happy to announce our partnership with Ericsson to manage our wireline and wireless network on a pan-Indian basis,” RCom head of commercial Suresh Rangachar said.
RCom's goal with the contract is to improve operational efficiencies, network optimization and the customer experience, he said.
“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.”