Mobile Broadband Network Limited (MBNL), the 3G infrastructure sharing partnership between EE and Three, has extended its managed services deal with Ericsson for a further two years.Ericsson has been a partner since 2009 and signed its current contract in 2015.

An extension was agreed in 2017, covering central operations, network performance and optimisation, field services and multi-vendor spare parts management.This latest extension covers design, plan and deploy projects and lasts until 2020.Ericsson MBNL“The agreement to extend the Design, Plan and Deploy services contract with Ericsson, for a further two years, reflects the strength of the collaborative relationship between Ericsson and MBNL,” declared Pat Coxen, MBNL managing director.“This will continue the trend of collectively delivering great results and is a sign of true partnership.

We look forward to continuing the great work with Ericsson in order to meet the demanding business objectives of MBNL and its Shareholders.”“This marks another significant milestone in our longstanding partnership with MBNL and our joint commitment to deliver superior network quality and performance to Three and EE consumers in the UK,” added Peter Laurin, head of business area managed services at Ericsson.“We are delighted to continue our successful relationship and continue to evolve our managed services portfolio to deliver innovation and industry leading efficiencies through automation and analytics.”MBNL was originally a partnership between Three and T-Mobile, with Orange’s infrastructure added in September 2010 following the merger that eventually created EE.EE and Three have a separate 4G arrangement which sees the two operators share the cost of mast infrastructure and the cost of transmission between masts and core networks, but antennas, spectrum and core networks are separate, giving each more freedom in terms of deployment than MBNL.