The agreement represents a managed services contract with Ericsson responsible for managing the network, including monitoring and surveillance of the end-to-end-service network performance improvements, hardware support and coordinating field and maintenance staff.

"Over the past two years we have developed a cost-effective and efficient way of working with Ericsson," says Stephen Crombie, Telecom's Mobile Networks and Planning Manager. "The relationship has been so satisfying that we wanted to extend our contract with Ericsson to ensure that both parties can plan effectively."

"The extension of the agreement is a tribute to Ericsson's standards of excellence and commitment to quality," says Brian Phillips, Managing Director of Ericsson New Zealand. "This reinforces our strong leadership in telecom outsourcing. Ericsson has over time signed well over 30 managed services contracts."