Sprint Outsources Network Operations to Ericsson

By Jane McEntegart, published on July 10, 2009 at 8:50 AM
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: , , , , | Themes: Smartphones
Syndication: Add to your Google homepage Add to My Yahoo!

Ericsson and Sprint have inked a $5 billion deal that will see the former maintain and service Sprint’s networks for the next seven years.

Sprint yesterday confirmed that it would outsource daily operations to Ericsson in a deal worth up to $5 billion over a seven-year period. Ericsson will assume responsibility for day-to-day services, provisioning and maintenance for Sprint's CDMA, iDen and wired networks.

Sprint will retain full ownership and control of its network assets as well as full control of technology and vendor selections. The carrier has said that, at the moment, there are no layoffs planned as a result of the deal but said roughly 6,000 Sprint employees will begin performing their network functions as Ericsson workers sometime in the third quarter.

The deal is an effort to cut down the cost of day to day operations and the carrier’s president of network operations, Steve Elfman, today said that the deal will free the company to focus on innovation and bringing new products and services to market.

Comments | Print | Send to a friend
Slideshows related to this news

Sponsored links

Comments

scook9 07/10/2009 3:26 PM
Hide
--3+

This sounds like a bit of desperation.....glad I dropped sprint for Verizon last week. Why would I want a carrier that cant even handle its own network?

Anonymous 07/10/2009 4:31 PM
Hide
-0+

Get ready for 30 to 50 percent of those workers to be laid off. It always the first step after something like this happens.

verenos 07/10/2009 4:58 PM
Hide
-0+

Spint does not plan to lay off these employees but you can be sure that Ericson will

fulle 07/10/2009 6:02 PM
Hide
-0+

Too depressing to give a thumbs up for, but I completely agree with Verenos.

tjhva 07/10/2009 6:12 PM
Hide
-0+

I'm pumped I had to click on an Ad to get to the main page today.

lajams 07/10/2009 7:22 PM
Hide
-2+

scook9 :
This sounds like a bit of desperation.....glad I dropped sprint for Verizon last week. Why would I want a carrier that cant even handle its own network?



When you own a great network, it makes sense to let someone else manage it, especially if its cheaper to do so. I think a lot of businesses are/have headed in this direction.

hellwig 07/10/2009 9:21 PM
Hide
-0+

If Ericsson is managing the network, what is Sprint doing, providing capital? Besides a Sprint sticker on the equipment, and legal ownership, what makes this Sprints network anymore?

Ramar 07/10/2009 10:06 PM
Hide
-0+

Ugh. My dad got layed off from Ericsson when the similar deal with Sony happened years ago; hope the current employees don't see the short end of this deal.

Sponsored links