STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN -- (Marketwire) -- 02/11/13 --

* Covers 100,000 km of fiber and mobile infrastructure in 11 telecom circles, across North and West of India, including Delhi and Mumbai

* Will lead to productive integration of 5,000 employees by moving them to Ericsson - providing them global opportunities

* Integrated management to deliver world class customer experience using global expertise and bringing in operational efficiencies and cost optimization

Reliance Communications Limited, India's fully integrated telecommunications service provider, today signed an eight-year full-scope managed services agreement with Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) for USD 1 billion to operate and manage the wireline and wireless networks in the Northern and Western states of India.

As per the contract, Ericsson will manage the day to day operations across wireline and wireless networks and will take over responsibility for field maintenance, network operations and operational planning of Reliance Communications 2G, CDMA and 3G mobile networks. This agreement is aimed to meet the fast evolving customer demand for communications applications and services in one of the world's most dynamic telecom markets.

Reliance Communications will benefit from Ericsson's proven world-class processes, methods and tools and the partnership will allow Reliance Communications to free up resources to focus on user experience, as well as improving innovation power, agility and speed across the specified geographies. Reliance Communications' infrastructure covers 24,000 towns and 600,000 villages in India to which it offers converged services including voice, data and video.

This is one of the first converged wireless and wireline managed services contract in India, and one of only a handful in the world. Ericsson will streamline Reliance Communications' operations by bringing all aspects of fiber, tower operations, wireless networks and wireline access networks to Reliance Communications' wireless and global enterprise business, across differentiated product lines. Ericsson will also drive a modernization of the tools, processes and best practices that are applied across the business resulting in operational efficiencies by managing cost through consolidation.

Commenting on the agreement, Gurdeep Singh, Chief Executive Officer - Wireless Business, Reliance Communications said, "We are happy to announce our partnership with Ericsson to manage our wireline and wireless network enabling us to provide a higher level of customer experience in terms of network and services. Given the complexity of network increasing with platforms, technologies and application offerings, we are banking on the experience, innovation and technical expertise of Ericsson to improve the productivity of our network and ensure that it delivers to its full potential. We are confident that they will exceed the expectations of our customers through optimization of resources and provide us cost effective solutions."

Magnus Mandersson, Executive Vice President and Head of Business Unit Global Services, Ericsson, said; "We are excited to partner with Reliance Communications for this strategic multi-technology managed services deal. The increasing uptake of new technologies requires an increased focus on customer experience management in the hyper competitive and highly dynamic Indian telecom market. With this partnership Reliance will increase focus on their core business and innovation. We are pleased to welcome more than 5,000 employees who will join us from Reliance Communications and support our long term commitment to India's ICT market."

This agreement will be driven by defined service level agreement governance. Ericsson will be responsible for improving network performance and ultimately service quality, with the goal of increasing customer satisfaction and retention. Ericsson will also work closely with Reliance Communications to identify opportunities to introduce new services and expand its existing businesses to help realize the full potential of its network.

"This partnership will enable our enterprise customers to deploy state-of-the-art data services on our integrated network through the global expertise of Ericsson. This is one of the first times that wireless and wireline enterprise network is being outsourced to deliver world-class service and performance assurance," added Punit Garg, Chief Executive Officer, Global and Enterprise Business, Reliance Communications.

Reliance Communications will benefit from Ericsson's proven world-class processes, methods and tools and the partnership will allow Reliance Communications to free up resources to focus on user experience, as well as improving innovation power, agility and speed across the specified geographies.

NOTES TO EDITORS

Bio and photo of Magnus Mandersson:

http://www.ericsson.com/thecompany/corporate_governance/company_management/magnus_mandersson

About Reliance Communications

Reliance Communications Limited founded by the late Shri Dhirubhai H Ambani (1932-2002) is the flagship company of the Reliance Group. The Reliance Group currently has a net worth in excess of Rs. 90,000 crore (US$ 17.7 billion), cash flows of Rs. 8,000 crore (US$ 1.6 billion), net profit of Rs. 3,200 crore (US$ 0.6 billion).

Reliance Communications is India's foremost and truly integrated telecommunications service provider. The Company, with a customer base of about 130 million including over 2.5 million individual overseas retail customers, ranks among the Top 6 Telecom companies in the world by number of customers in a single country. Reliance Communications corporate clientele includes over 35,000 Indian and multinational corporations including small and medium enterprises and over 800 global, regional and domestic carriers.

Reliance Communications has established a pan-India, next generation, integrated (wireless and wireline), convergent (voice, data and video) digital network that is capable of supporting best-of-class services spanning the entire communications value chain, covering over 24,000 towns and 600,000 villages. Reliance Communications owns and operates the world's largest next generation IP enabled connectivity infrastructure, comprising over 277,000 kilometers of fibre optic cable systems in India, USA, Europe, Middle East and the Asia Pacific region.

Reliance Communications Limited, Registered Office: H, Block, 1st Floor, Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge City, Navi Mumbai - 400 710

About Ericsson

Download high-resolution photos and broadcast-quality video at www.ericsson.com/press

Ericsson is the world's leading provider of communications technology and services. We are enabling the Networked Society with efficient real-time solutions that allow us all to study, work and live our lives more freely, in sustainable societies around the world.

Our offering comprises services, software and infrastructure within Information and Communications Technology for telecom operators and other industries. Today more than 40 percent of the world's mobile traffic goes through Ericsson networks and we support customers' networks servicing more than 2.5 billion subscribers.

We operate in 180 countries and employ more than 100,000 people. Founded in 1876, Ericsson is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2011 the company's net sales were SEK 226.9 billion (USD 35.0 billion). Ericsson is listed on NASDAQ OMX, Stockholm and NASDAQ, New York stock exchanges.

www.ericsson.com

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Reliance Communications Press release PDF: http://hugin.info/1061/R/1676913/546745.pdf

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Source: Ericsson via Thomson Reuters ONE

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