[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

Reliance Communications, a fully integrated telecommunications service provider from India, has signed an eight-year, full-scope, managed services agreement with Ericsson for $1 billion, to operate and manage the wireline and wireless networks in the Northern and Western states of India.

As per the contract, Ericsson will manage the day to day operations across wireline and wireless networks and will take over responsibility for field maintenance, network operations and operational planning of Reliance Communications 2G, CDMA and 3G mobile networks.

Reliance Communications’ infrastructure covers 24,000 towns and 600,000 villages in India, in which it offers converged services including voice, data and video. Ericsson will streamline Reliance Communications’ operations by bringing all aspects of fiber, tower operations, wireless networks and wireline access networks to Reliance Communications’ wireless and global enterprise business, across differentiated product lines.

Over 5,000 employees will join Ericsson from Reliance Communications, as part of the agreement.