E-Plus Extends Alcatel-Lucent Outsourcing Contract

After a transition phase, the Germany subsidiary of KPN, E-Plus has announced that it has extended its contract with Alcatel-Lucent for the expansion, maintenance and operation of its mobile network from three to five years. Alcatel-Lucent says that the extension of the contract was a because of network quality stabilization and improvements during the transition phase.

Alcatel-Lucent initially took over the operational business units, which are responsible for building, running and maintaining the mobile network, for a period of three years on March 1, 2007. The outsourcing resulted in the transfer of around 750 E-Plus employees throughout Germany, to Alcatel-Lucent. The agreed transition phase was successfully completed earlier in October. Therefore, all processes such as IT Systems for the network management, replacement parts procurement for base stations are now managed entirely from within the Alcatel-Lucent environment.

"We're very satisfied with the performance of Alcatel-Lucent during the first months. Thanks to their well-coordinated team and experience with other international outsourcing projects, the transition phase went smoothly and was managed professionally," explained Elmar Grasser, Chief Technical Officer of E-Plus Mobilfunk, on the decision to extend the contract to 2012. "The fact that despite continuous change and optimization, the quality of our network could even be improved, especially with regard to voice services, was also decisive," Grasser added.

Posted to the site on 21st October 2007