BT to manage O2's UK network

BT and O2 in the UK have sigened a five-year managed network agreement. Under its terms, BT Wholesale will provide and manage the links between O2's core national network and most of its base stations.

BT said it will design and deliver a cost efficient, flexible solution under the terms of the contract, enabling O2 to manage the predicted network traffic increases caused by new bandwidth-intensive handsets, lowering the cost of investment in upgrading the network.

According to BT, the agreement benefits from its new 21st Century Network-enabled Ethernet service, with costs matching actual traffic and revenue increases.

It claimed the agreement allows O2 to benefiting from the economies of scale and national reach that BT Wholesale offers while avoiding capital investment risk.

O2 confirmed it has gained a solution which meets its increasing access and bandwidth requirements, while allowing it to realise greater cost efficiencies and provide an improved mobile broadband experience for its customers, while reducing access transmission whole lifecycle costs.