NEW YORK—British wireless operator MmO2 launched two initiatives in a move to provide mobile data and products to customers in Western Europe.
The carrier said it plans to build a seamless pan-European GPRS-based mobile data highway designed to support the development of multimedia services and their rapid launch across mm02’s businesses simultaneously. In connection with the construction of the network, MmO2 plans to consolidate its existing supply contracts and replace them with the recently announced strategic partnerships with Nortel Networks and Nokia as the principal suppliers of the mobile data network.
The company noted the network will help it reduce capital expenditures, increase GPRS revenue, reduce time to market of new data products and services and improve network quality of service.
“It supports our drive towards the creation of future mobile communications in Western Europe and underlines the benefits of our strategy of having 100-percent ownership of all our businesses,” said Peter Erskine, chief executive officer of mm02.
Nortel will supply a seamless GPRS network across all mm02’s territories and supply the 3G core network infrastructure in the United Kingdom, Germany and Ireland and a minimum of 30 percent of the 3G radio base stations. Nokia will provide a minimum of 30 percent of the 3G base stations, as well as retaining all its existing 2G base station business, which is currently at around 70 percent.
Both vendors will be invited to compete for the remaining 40 percent of the 3G radio base stations, though MmO2 said it would retain complete control of the 3G network roll out, which it said would be driven by customer and market demand.
In addition, MmO2 signed a letter of intent with Ericsson aimed at outsourcing its mobile network operations in the Netherlands. The network will remain the property and under full control of the Dutch operator Telfort, with Ericsson taking care of the daily network operations, planning, design and implementation of the network.
“This agreement is a new step in our O2 strategy in which we can focus more and more on our business,” said Tom aan de Stegge, CEO of Telfort. “The network is not our core business, but is core to our business. As a result of this efficiency improvement we will realize cost savings as well.”
