Nokia has signed a 5-year managed services contract with Optus, a leading telecom operator in Australia, to manage and maintain network infrastructure, operations and field maintenance.
Finland-based telecom equipment major did not disclose the financial details of the managed services deal with Optus, a Singtel group company.
Nokia and Optus will develop a Network Operations Centre (NOC), building on global best practices and leveraging local talent to deliver higher performance networks.
Optus will tap Nokia’s Global Delivery Model to streamline its network operations. Nokia will also leverage its managed services expertise to help Optus bundle, standardize and automate its processes.
Optus will benefit from reduced operational complexity. Nokia will also work with Optus to review its network structure and operations periodically to ensure Optus’ competitive advantage and ability to respond to customers’ evolving needs.
Nokia will provide network operations and software services, and deploy robotics, artificial intelligence and extreme automation to help Optus standardize and scale its operations, while Nokia Field Services will manage all components of work associated with mobile base station equipment and facilities.
“We will work with Optus to help use automation and other network management tools to further enhance the customer experience, operational capability and quality. This initiative is in keeping with Optus’ vision to transform into a mobile-led, multimedia organization,” said Friedrich Trawoeger, head of Managed Services at Nokia.
Nokia says it’s a global service market leader with more than 200 mobile and fixed managed services contracts across the world. Two out of three of these contracts consist of multi-vendor networks.
Nokia signed the managed services contract from Optus at a time when its rival Ericsson is exiting from several non-viable managed service deals.
Nokia is investing in areas such as robotics and analytics to increase speed in delivery by up to five times and improve quality, as well as predict site degradation with more than 80 percent accuracy and restore anomalies before they happen.
Optus investment
Optus in December 2017 said the acquisition of a variety of new metropolitan licences for its customers in the 2300 MHz and 3500 MHz spectrum bands. Optus won two 2300MHz lots in Sydney and Melbourne, and three 3500MHz lots in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide for A$6,513,000.
The 3500MHz acquisition complements Optus’ 3500MHz metro holdings and will enable Optus to offer 5G services for customers in Sydney and Melbourne.
Optus Networks Managing Director Dennis Wong said: “As Optus continues to evolve into a mobile-led entertainment company, we are focussed on the efficient use of our spectrum holdings and ensuring our network capacity is optimised for our customers’ future high speed data demands.”
Optus in August announced its network investment program for the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Game, with 406 infrastructure projects planned to be completed ahead of the Opening Ceremony.
In August, Optus announced the first part of its network investment to prepare for GC2018, including four new towers, 4G upgrades to 62 towers, new in-building coverage at ten sites and upgraded in-building coverage to a further ten sites.
As at the end of September, Optus had over 6 million 4G mobile customers. The mobile network reaches 96.5 per cent of 4G population coverage and Optus is on track to deliver a further 500 mobile base stations in regional areas by the end of June 2018.
Baburajan K
