Ericsson lands $5bn deal with Sprint

Some 6,000 Sprint employees will join Ericsson

Ericsson has signed a deal to manage the daily network operations for telco service provider Sprint.

The companies said that the so-called Network Advantage deal would span the next seven years and bring Ericsson between $4.5 and $5bn in revenues.

In exchange, Ericsson will take over the day-to-day maintenance for Sprint's CDMA, iDEN and wireline networks. Ericsson will also take in 6,000 Sprint employees to its own ranks with no layoffs planned on either side.

Customers will continue to deal with Sprint as the primary service provider.

Sprint hopes that by outsourcing network management duties to Ericsson, the company can boost the performance and reliability of its networks.

"No other US-based carrier has followed through on the business-enhancing vision inherent in Network Advantage," said Sprint president of network operations Steve Elfman.

"Our best-ever network performance will become even better by leveraging Ericsson’s world-class leadership in network services, their proprietary tools, and the knowledge of more than 30,000 dedicated and highly-specialised service professionals to power Sprint’s Now Network."

Sprint said that it expects the transition to officially begin in the third quarter of this year.