The largest rural service provider in the U.S., Overland Park, Kans.-based Embarq, has given up the management of it network operations center along with its people to Nokia Siemens Networks as part of a seven-year managed services agreement announced today.
Embarq will transition 265 of its employees from NOCs in New Century, Kan.; Johnson City, Tenn.; Leesburg, Fla.; and Greenville, N.C., to become NSN employees and help support network operations for Embarq’s voice networks.
This is the first significant managed network operations agreement of its kind for Nokia Siemens Networks in North America. Embarq has approximately 18,000 employees and operates in 18 states.
Embarq wished to reduce operational expenses for voice traffic monitoring and technical support of its network operations and did not want to make the large investment necessary to achieve the scale of management it could get with NSN.
Jim Hansen, senior vice president of Network Services at Embarq, said Nokia Siemens Networks will bring its global telecom experience to play as a productivity multiplier to more efficiently monitor our voice traffic and provide technical support while meeting or exceeding current service levels.
This is a significant development for the outsourcing movement and for NSN. “We believe that the North American marketplace holds tremendous opportunity, and this investment demonstrates our commitment to grow our business and have the industry’s best service capabilities for communications companies,” said Sue Spradley, head of North America, Nokia Siemens Networks.
Nokia Siemens Networks will assume operational responsibility under the agreement at the start of the fourth quarter of this year. At that time those Embarq employees involved in the agreement will become employees of Nokia Siemens Networks. Their responsibilities will remain the same and are expected to expand to cover other networks and technologies supported by Nokia Siemens Networks.
