Smile Communications and Ericsson recently signed a 5 year contract for Ericsson managed services of their 4G/LTE networks across Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
This agreement will give Ericsson full operational management of Smile’s end-to-end service that includes network operations, performance, optimization, field support, and maintenance.
The agreement leverages Ericson’s more than 15 years of experience in managing multi-vendor and multi-technology networks. Ericsson is the global leader in telecommunications managed services, managing networks for multiple operators; providing managed services for up to 1 billion subscribers.
In a statement released by Tom Allen, Group COO of Smile, “We regard Ericsson as more than a vendor, we are long term partners focused on delivering on the Smile promise to be the broadband provider of choice in Africa and to ensure that our customers fully benefit from the internet world.”
This will afford Smile the chance to focus on core business issues, and to concentrate on providing excellent customer service while still having complete ownership of their assets.
Fredrik Jejdling, President Ericsson sub-Saharan Africa says: “We are excited to be delivering this service to Smile as it further extends our partnership with the operator in the region. Bringing with us our expertise as global HSPA and LTE leaders.”
Ericsson is present in all high-traffic LTE markets, including USA and Japan. Forty percent of the world’s mobile traffic is carried over Ericsson managed networks.
