Nokia in 5-year managed services contract with VimpelCom

Nokia booth at MWC 2017Nokia announced its five-year managed services contract with Russian telecom operator VimpelCom for the management of fixed, mobile and transport networks.

Financial details were not disclosed.

Finland-based Nokia, which has been managing services for VimpelCom’s network in central Russia, will extend this responsibility to manage VimpelCom’s 2G, 3G and 4G networks, provided by a variety of equipment vendors.

The consolidation of its managed service indicates that some of the rivals of Nokia may miss the managed services business from VimpelCom.

Nokia will manage field maintenance work in the Southern, North Caucasian and Central regions of Russia, including Moscow. VimpelCom believes that the transition to a new operating model for Beeline network management is another step towards a new VimpelCom technological reality.

VimpelCom will benefit from reduced network and operational complexity, faster time to market and lower total cost of ownership in running multiple networks. VimpelCom will enhance service quality for more than 58 million mobile and 2.2 million fixed broadband customers in Russia by consolidating and transforming network operations.

Nokia will deliver full network planning and optimization services, network implementation, project management and ongoing network support from its global delivery hub in Voronezh, Russia.

“The deal with Nokia enables us to restructure business processes, improve financial performance, keep pace with global trends and drive technological innovations,” said Martin Skop, executive vice president for Infrastructure Development at VimpelCom.

Igor Leprince, head of Global Services at Nokia, was instrumental in signing the managed services deal with VimpelCom.

Nokia said it has more than 200 mobile and fixed managed services contracts across the world. Two out of three of these contracts consist of multi-vendor networks.