BASE Company inks managed service deal with Tech Mahindra

IT firm Tech Mahindra today said it has inked a five-year managed service agreement with BASE Company in Belgium for operations and network rollout.

Tech Mahindra will be responsible for amongst others mobile site upgrades, maintenance, incident handling, site construction and data centre maintenance for multi-vendor 2G/3G and LTE networks, Tech Mahindra said in a statement.

No financial details were disclosed.

With this agreement, BASE Company is broadening its partnership with Tech Mahindra, creating highly efficient network operations, where a managed service partner is responsible for both network and IT, it added.

BASE, subsidiary of KPN Group, has a leading network position with its 3G dual carrier network. It aims to cover the majority of the country with LTE end-2014.

KPN Group is the third largest of Belgium's three mobile telecommunications operators. It competes with Proximus, owned by Belgian state owned telco Belgacom, and Mobistar, a subsidiary of France Telecom.

BASE and Tech Mahindra will partner to realise the expansion and improvement of the network and achieve daily operational excellence in its network systems, the statement said.

BASE Company will retain ownership of the network and of the strategic network planning and development, it added.

"The broadening of this partnership fits perfectly within the strategy of KPN Group of improving efficiency and effectiveness in its ICT environments and processes and addressing strategic growth areas with its partners," BASE Company CEO Jos Donvil said.

Transferring the day-to-day network operations to Tech Mahindra enables BASE Company to reinforce its focus on providing an excellent customer experience, Donvil added.

This partnership positions Tech Mahindra as the only ICT Company providing E2E managed services cutting across both network and IT operations, Tech Mahindra CEO and MD CP Gurnani said.

"With this engagement, Tech Mahindra and BASE will jointly address the growing demands of BASE's end customers as they look at strengthening its position in the LTE market in Belgium," he added.