Alcatel today announced, in Vienna, that it has been awarded a seven-year outsourcing deal by ONE, the Austrian mobile communications operator, for the management, operation and maintenance of its network. This contract is worth Euro 472 million and will take effect as of 1 January 2004.
By outsourcing its network activities, ONE intends to shift its focus from managing infrastructure to the development of new customer-oriented services and optimise its processes to gain in efficiency.
Per this contract, Alcatel will mainly provide the operation and maintenance of the entire multi-vendor mobile network of 1.4 million subscribers and will manage the project planning and the physical roll-out of ONE`s GSM network extensions and new UMTS infrastructure, independently of the origin of the equipment. This contract also includes facility management for ONE`s headquarters, regional offices and ONE shops.
The outsourcing agreement involves the transfer of approximately 200 operation and maintenance employees from ONE to Alcatel in Austria.
ONE`s CEO Jorgen Bang-Jensen sees strategic advantages in the alliance with Alcatel: "New mobile technologies today support the launch of a wide range of added value services designed to meet our customers` expectations. To take full advantage of this potential, we have decided to concentrate on the development of customer-specific services and therefore will outsource network operations to Alcatel, our strategic network partner. Alcatel has proven its experience in this domain as well as its understanding of our business and the importance of our staff in our success."
Serge Tchuruk, Chairman and CEO of Alcatel, said: "This contract demonstrates how Alcatel, by taking on the operations and maintenance of the network, can help operators focus their resources on what is really core for them: their customers. The role of Alcatel in such contracts changes from that of an equipment supplier to that of a strategic partner that is responsible for helping the operator to meet the market challenges."
In executing the deal, Alcatel will use the synergies it creates with other contracts at the network maintenance level, particularly in Austria where Alcatel already provides network roll-out and maintenance services for other customers. At an operational level, Alcatel will be able to leverage the skills and experience gained for our recently executed contract with Telecom New Zealand.
This contract and its unique scale confirms Alcatel`s position as the worldwide leader for outsourced operations and maintenance of multi-vendor networks.
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In October 1998, the communications company ONE launched Austria`s only nation-wide GSM-1800 mobile telephony network. Besides mobile telephony, ONE also offers the Internet product i-ONE and the fixed-line solution f-ONE. At the end of June 2003, ONE had about 1 400 employees and more than 1.6 million customers (1.37 million mobile, 145 000 fixed-line and 150 000 Internet customers). Turnover in 2002 amounted to EUR 619.7 million. ONE has a population coverage of 98%. ONE is the only mobile telephony operator to offer GPRS and HSCSD (ONE High Speed) in Austria. To date, ONE has invested EUR 1.65 billion; of which EUR 99 million was in 2002. ONE (ONE GmbH) is owned by the German E.ON (50.10%), the Norwegian Telenor (17.45%), Orange (17.45%) and the Danish TDC (15%).
Alcatel
Alcatel provides end-to-end communications solutions, enabling carriers, service providers and enterprises to deliver contents to any type of user, anywhere in the world. Leveraging its long-term leadership in telecommunications networks equipment as well as its expertise in applications and network services, Alcatel enables its customers to focus on optimising their service offerings and revenue streams. With sales of EURO 16.5 billion in 2002, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries.
Alcatel`s Integration and Services activities
Alcatel is today a market leader in providing insourcing services for multivendor networks in multiple countries. With over 20 contracts to date - among them the network management deal awarded this year by TNZ- Alcatel is clearly at the forefront of this growing market opportunity.
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