Ericsson Signs Warid Deal

STOCKHOLM -- Ericsson's managed services agreement with Warid Telecommunications Pvt. Limited (Warid Telecom) in Pakistan has been expanded with the build out and maintenance of the GSM/GPRS network in 20 cities, added to the nationwide network.

With this expansion contract, Ericsson will take full responsibility for deployment, operation, maintenance and optimization of the network in the additional 20 cities. The contract includes provisioning of a complete turnkey GSM/GPRS solution for core and radio network.

When completed, Warid Telecom's network capacity will increase from 1.5 million to 3.5 million subscribers. The deployment has already started and is expected to be complete by September, 2005.

The contract reaffirms the strong relationship between Ericsson and Warid Telecom. Ericsson has deployed Warid Telecom's greenfield network and is now also operating the same. The network, covering 28 major cities and several main highways throughout Pakistan, was commercially launched in May, 2005.

Hamid Farooq, Chief Executive Officer of Warid Telecom, says that this has been a partnership in the true sense of the word. "With Ericsson taking care of the network deployment and maintenance, we have been able to focus on bringing high quality mobile communications services to all Pakistanis and establishing our brand on the market," he says.

Zibber Mohiuddin, Country Manager of Ericsson Pakistan, says that Warid's decision to award Ericsson with the expansion of its network is proof of Ericsson's strengths as a managed services partner.

Warid Telecom is planning to launch several new services with the completion of its network expansion programme, including missed call notification and mobile portal. Warid Telecom already offers postpaid and prepaid services, short messaging service (SMS) and multimedia messaging service (MMS) with the launch of phase 1 of its network last month.

Ericsson AB