Vodafone UK and BT sign five-year managed network agreement

Vodafone UK and BT have announced a new managed network solutions agreement that will see BT Wholesale provide and manage high speed connectivity between Vodafone’s UK base stations and its core national network. Under the terms of the five-year agreement, BT will deliver a cost-efficient and flexible solution that enables Vodafone UK to manage the predicted growth in traffic and bandwidth requirements from its range of new bandwidth-intensive mobile applications, such as web browsing, video streaming and music downloads, without the need to invest significant capital in self-build technology. The contract deploys BT's new 21st Century Network (21CN)-enabled Ethernet service, offering backhaul speeds of up to 60Mbps. ‘By working with BT Wholesale, we are able to realise immediate cost efficiencies and focus on our customers, while BT provides a managed service for our growing access and backhaul needs,’ said Jeni Mundy, Chief Technology Officer of Vodafone UK. ‘This agreement supports us in our continued drive to expand our market-leading position in sales of mobile internet and broadband products and services, and positions us to meet growing demand from our customers.’