Ericsson scoops up Vodafone Italy managed services deal

Vodafone Italy awarded Ericsson the contract to manage the field service operations of its fixed and mobile networks, as well as for its fixed core network nodes.

The five-year deal will see Ericsson take over the responsibility for Vodafone Italy's access and transmission networks, together with the transfer of around 300 of the operator's employees from the beginning of this month.

Commenting on being selected as Vodafone Italy's outsourcing partner, Magnus Mandersson, head of Ericsson's global services unit, said in a statement: "With the scale of Ericsson's business in Italy, the expertise, know-how and resources of our people on the ground, we have a fantastic opportunity to add real value to Vodafone Italy via this field operations undertaking."

Ericsson, which has managed services contract for networks with more than 800 million subscribers, has already secured deals to look after Vodafone networks in Germany, the UK and the Netherlands.

Separately, Virgin Mobile France, the MVNO owned by Omea Telecom, has agreed an infrastructure and managed services contract with Ericsson. Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, president of Omea Telecom, said in a statement: "By signing this contract we're pursuing our goal to grow. Omea Telecom is already France's fourth largest mobile operator. As an unbundled mobile operator, we're demonstrating our ability to adapt to the evolving telecoms market and the emerging expectations of consumers."

For more:
- see this Telegeography article
- see this Ericsson release
- see this separate Ericsson release

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