New Zealand’s Chorus extends managed services deal with Nokia

New Zealand infrastructure provided Chorus has extended its managed services agreement with Nokia for another three years.

With the contract extension, Nokia will remain the operator’s sole managed services partner.

The contract is based on Nokia providing fully managed end-to-end operations services aimed at improving the customer experience, operational efficiency and the quality of Chorus’ nationwide fixed line network.

The initial managed services contract was signed in 2014. Under the agreement, Nokia is providing real-time end-to-end operations and network management from its Global Delivery Center in India.

“Our decision to extend the existing agreement reflects our satisfaction with Nokia operations and support services,” Chorus CTO Ewen Powell said.

“We need a partner that understands our business and can deliver simplicity over complexity, helping us launch innovative offerings to our partners and their customers while improving the overall reliability of our networks. Nokia has proven its capabilities to do that, so the extension was very straight forward.”

Chorus was spun out of the infrastructure arm of former state-owned operator Telecom New Zealand as part of the demerger agreement that was a condition of its participation in New Zealand’s Ultrafast Broadband (UFB) state broadband project. The retail division was spun out into what is now called Spark.

Chorus owns the majority of telephone lines and exchange equipment in New Zealand and is responsible for building around 70% of the UFB.