Throughout 2009 Ovum has commented on the growing importance of network services and managed network services in the telecoms vertical. Ericsson Global Services is the market leader and currently sees over 30 per cent of its 2008 group revenues generated by professional services and network rollout services. At a recent service briefing, Ericsson's Business Unit Global Services clarified its ambitions and showcased its most comprehensive managed services contract to date.
Ericsson's Business Unit Global Services, known as BUGS internally, is at the sharp end of Ericsson's future business aspirations. The company claims to manage networks supporting a total of 350 million subscribers, and it is aiming to increase that to 1 billion. It currently has 300 managed services contracts covering field maintenance, operations (up to the BSS stack), operational readiness and shared solutions (hosted and managed backhaul). The most comprehensive contract is with MBNL in the UK. Article