E-Plus Mobilfunk and Alcatel-Lucent sign major network outsourcing agreement

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) and E-Plus announced today that the world’s leading network integrator will be managing several network business divisions of Germany’s third-largest mobile communications provider, E-Plus Mobilfunk. Under the terms of the network outsourcing agreement, E-Plus Mobilfunk will transfer the operational business divisions responsible for the operation, maintenance and deployment of its cellular network to Alcatel-Lucent on March 1, enabling E-Plus to concentrate on its core business, reduce operational expenses and increase network quality.

As part of this agreement, about 750 E-Plus employees in Germany will join Alcatel-Lucent.

E-Plus will maintain responsibility for strategic network planning and network development, including the selection of mobile communications locations and their technical equipment to ensure the long-term quality of its cellular network.

“Our decision to enter a strategic partnership with Alcatel-Lucent is designed to guarantee our subscribers a network of a constantly increasing quality over the long term,” explained Elmar Grasser, Chief Technical Officer of E-Plus Mobilfunk GmbH & Co KG. “Alcatel-Lucent is the world’s leading network integrator with the resources to meet future network construction and maintenance requirements with greater speed, flexibility and cost synergies than we could alone. And with this step, we’re once again playing a pioneering role on the German market.”

The outsourcing of several network divisions is part of E-Plus’s strategic reorientation and follows the company´s recently announced restructuring. These measures are intended to lead to increased customer focus as well as boosting efficiency, flexibility and effectiveness, thus contributing to E-Plus´ continued profitable growth.

“By outsourcing individual business divisions, we can apply greater energy to our core business – and that means quality and especially care for our customers. It will put us in a position to focus even more attention on the development of simple, cost-effective mobile communications solutions for clearly defined customer segments,” Grasser added.

Network operations and managed services is a key focus area for Alcatel-Lucent’s service activities. Alcatel-Lucent manages more than 50 networks around the world from ten of its Global Network Operations Centers and IP Transformation Centers.

"We are proud that an innovative, quality-conscious service provider like E-Plus has entrusted us with the maintenance and management of its cellular network,” said John Meyer, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s service activities. “We are the world’s leading network integrator, and hosted and network operations is one of our strengths. We look forward to helping E-Plus meet the needs of their customers. We also look forward to having the experienced and talented employees from E-Plus join the Alcatel-Lucent team, bolstering our ability to serve this important customer and expanding our expertise and resources.”