Network management takes off in UK

Swedish equipment vendor Ericsson has been racking up the managed services contracts lately, on Thursday signing a deal with Telefonica’s UK operation, O2.

Under a multi year managed services agreement, Ericsson will take over day to day operations for O2 UK, as well as providing field maintenance services for radio and switch sites, spare parts management, logistics support as well as optimisation and facilities engineering.

The Swedish firm has an ongoing agreement to supply O2 with core network infrastructure, but this latest deal marks the first time Ericsson will take over the running of the network too.

Coincidentally, earlier this year rumours were floating around about a network sharing agreement between Vodafone UK and O2. However in March, the Big V announced a seven year deal, which will see Ericsson provide maintenance and operations for Vodafone UK’s 2G and 3G radio access networks, which almost brings the networks together under one roof.

In fact, Ericsson pretty much has the UK market sewn up from a network management perspective. In 2007 3 UK and T-Mobile agreed to share their 3G radio-access networks and set up a 50/50 joint venture, Mobile Broadband Network (MBNL), to manage the integration. MBNL is operated and maintained by, you guessed it, Ericsson.

Just to be different, Orange UK has also got a managed services contract in place, but that’s with Nokia Siemens Networks.

Last week, US carrier Sprint tapped Ericsson in a network management deal worth between $4.5bn and $5bn.