Hutchison Telecoms and Ericsson Australia have signed a seven-year agreement whereby Ericsson will operate Hutchison's paging, CDMA and WCDMA (3G) networks.
Hutchison retains ownership and full control of its network assets. It will continue to have responsibility for strategic design and planning, as well as equipment purchasing decisions. Ericsson will take care of day-to-day network operations, including the management of the operating platforms that support service to customers.
The arrangement is expected to provide cost benefits for Hutchison of $40-45 million over the seven year contract.
A specialist unit will be established within Ericsson dedicated only to managing services for Hutchison. About 240 Hutchison technical and IT staff will be transferred to Ericsson, to complement the existing Ericsson team currently devoted to Hutchison business in Australia.
Hutchison is steaming full speed ahead on rolling out a 3G mobile platform whne many other mobile operators, including Vodafone, have said they are now unlikely to set-up and operate 3G services in Australia because they don't think there is sufficient demand for the data systems.
