Romtelecom and Cosmote could outsource to Ericsson part of the network-related services

Romtelecom and Cosmote, both controlled by the Greek telecommunications group OTE, whose major shareholder is Deutsche Telekom, started negotiations with Ericsson for outsourcing the maintenance, monitoring and operation network services, announced representatives of the two companies, according to HotNews.ro. 

“Romtelecom and Cosmote Romania went for a business model which requires integrated support services in the Operations and Maintenance organizational structures. As a result of this decision, the following business units: Passive Network Maintenance, Monitoring and Operations of Fixed and Mobile Network will be transferred to an external partner”, said the companies’ officials, quoted by HotNews.ro.

Ericsson has been selected upon receiving offers from companies operating in the telecommunications market, domestic and international, hence, the two parties are running discussions now so as to agree on the terms of the future cooperation. Yet, any additional details will not be disclosed prior to closing of the agreement. 

As the same source informed, about 750 employees are subject to the outsourcing process. It would be the second such move following a similar arrangement concluded four years ago which involved 400 employees  of Romtelecom who  were transferred to Ericsson to which were outsourced the switch and electric power supply operations. 

Ericsson is a world-leading provider of communications technology and services including software and infrastructure within ICT for telecom operators, as well as other industries. In Romania, the Swedish-based company running operations worth more than 100 million euro started operations in 1994 and also opened a research and development center 13 years later, in the capital city, Bucharest.