Optus seals outsourcing Nokia deal with 170 jobs on the line

Optus has finalised an outsourcing agreement with Nokia that could see 170 staff made redundant from its enterprise ICT division.

The five-year deal will see Nokia manage key components of Optus' mobile network infrastructure, operations and field maintenance. Nokia said it would also help Optus to "bundle, standardise and automate its processes".

The two companies will also work together to develop a network operations centre.

It was revealed in October that the telco was cutting 70 jobs from a variety of roles at Optus Business following an efficiency review, with a possible 170 more staff up for redundancy when the outsourcing deal with Nokia comes into effect from mid-2018.

Optus said at the time would offer affected staff redeployment or redundancy options.

"We are pleased to work with Optus to help them use automation and other network management tools to further enhance the customer experience, operational capability and quality," said Nokia managed services head Friedrich Trawoeger.

"This initiative is in keeping with Optus' vision to transform into a mobile-led, multimedia organisation. We are leveraging the benefits of our unique global delivery model, which brings together global expertise with local insights, to fully meet the needs of our customers."

Nokia said it would provide network operations and software services for Optus to help scale its operations by deploying robotics, AI and extreme automation. Nokia's field services team will manage all work on Optus' mobile base station equipment. The company said that Optus will also benefit from reduced operational complexity.

ASX-listed hosting and telecommunications provider Macquarie Telecom was also set to be impacted by Nokia's decision to offshore roles to India.

MacTel chose to spin up its own network operations centre in Sydney, "rescuing at least 13 jobs from being shipped offshore", it said in a statement.