By Dr. John Saw, Sprint CTO

The Sprint network is on an amazing journey. Today we see that our network is performing at best-ever levels, and we’re proud of the progress we’ve made working with our partners to plant our network firmly back in the game.

This week we’re speaking with our team about the next phase of our transformation, including how we will manage our network with Ericsson.

Going forward we’ve decided to renew portions of our managed services work with Ericsson when the current contract reaches its full term in September.

Ericsson will provide some multi-vendor services that support the ongoing operations and development of our network, while overall Network Service Assurance will be performed by Sprint. As a result, some Ericsson employees will transition to Sprint, while others will remain with Ericsson.

We’ve been clear that we’re going to do things differently at Sprint. And we have very aggressive goals to lower costs while at the same time improving our network and executing our densification and optimization strategy. With our diverse toolkit of innovative cell site solutions and our deep spectrum holdings, we’re very confident in our ability to drive network improvements while reducing costs.

Being closely connected to our network and our customers is a key aspect of Sprint’s turn-around strategy. Therefore, this is the right time for Sprint to take on more direct responsibility for its operations.

We’re proud of the progress we’ve made with Ericsson over the past seven years, and they remain a valued part of our plan. We look forward to this next phase of our journey and the amazing results we’ll deliver for our customers.

John