Ericsson to manage Three UK and EE's shared network

The MBNL joint venture formed by UK mobile operators EE and Three UK has selected Swedish vendor Ericsson to manage operations and maintenance of the consolidated radio access network (RAN).

Under the terms of the five-year contract, Ericsson will deliver central operations and transmission, network performance and optimisation, field services, and multi-vendor spare parts management services. Ericsson will also manage EE’s and Three UK’s 4G LTE RAN networks, which are being deployed by rivals Huawei and Samsung respectively.

The Swedish vendor added that it will deliver a “customer-centric operational model” to provide the two operators with greater insight into their networks to improve customer experience. The carriers will also be able to identify areas for future improvement, it added.

“Ericsson will deliver a further enhancement to the service levels we achieve, and drive continuous service improvement and innovation to further extend our lead in positive customer experience,” said Graham Payne, MD at MBNL.

The deal will be welcome news for Ericsson, which lost out to Huawei in December of 2012, when Three UK failed to renew a managed services contract for the operator’s core network and instead went with the Chinese vendor.

The project to merge the MBNL networks was completed in November 2010, with more than 12,000 sites consolidated at the time.