Indian telco Reliance Communications (RCOM) has signed an eight-year contract with Swedish vendor Ericsson to manage its networks in the northern and western states of India. The deal, valued at USD1 billion, follows a similar agreement with French-US equipment manufacturer Alcatel-Lucent which covered the management of networks in the southern and eastern states, Reuters reports. The area to be covered by Ericsson includes 100,000km of fibre-optic cable and mobile infrastructure in eleven circles, including the metro areas of Delhi and Mumbai.
Under the terms of the agreement, Ericsson will be responsible for network performance and service quality and will work closely with RCOM to identify opportunities for opportunities to introduce new services. ‘This partnership will enable our enterprise customers to deploy state-of-the-art data services on our integrated network through the global expertise of Ericsson,’ Punit Garg, CEO of RCOM’s global and enterprise business, added.