Alcatel-Lucent Picks Up Vodafone Service Contract

Vodafone UK has signed a managed service agreement with Alcatel-Lucent to support, maintain and upgrade a range of technical platforms. Under the five year agreement, Alcatel-Lucent will carry out maintenance and operations for Vodafone UKÃ's Intelligent Network & Core Applications (INCA) platforms, as well as transition current systems to standardised Alcatel-Lucent platforms.

Vodafone says that the initiative is expected to help accelerate the introduction of new prepay and enterprise offers to both consumers and businesses to give customers even more convenience and value.

"We are confident that this agreement with Alcatel-Lucent will help Vodafone UK to operate more efficiently as well as enhance levels of service to customers," said Jeni Mundy, CTO of Vodafone UK. "By accessing Alcatel-LucentÃ's standardised product range and strategic services architecture, we also expect to lower the cost and accelerate the roll out of new products by reducing the amount of system customisation required."

No financial details were provided.

The INCA platforms which will be managed under the contract cover the Home Location Register (HLR) which contains information on customers, the Prepayment system and the Intelligent Nodes which control Virtual Private Network (VPN) services. Together the INCA platforms manage the mobility, authentication and incoming call activity of subscribers, they perform real time rating and control of prepay calls, and they allow advanced call scenarios used extensively in VPN and enterprise services.

Posted to the site on 23rd May 2008