The contract is being heralded as India's first end-to-end managed services contract and one of the world's biggest. It will involve Alcatel-Lucent introducing an array of next generation infrastructure, tools and techniques to transform the Reliance network and create a leaner organisation.

Around 4000 existing Reliance employees will be moved into a new, Alcalu-run managed services operation which will meld the currently independent wireless and wireline teams into a single network management organisation.

Alcatel-Lucent will set up and operate a slew of next-generation OSS (operations support systems) and optimisation tools to improve network performance across Reliance’s wireless, wireline, long-distance, fibre and utilities’ functions.

Reliance Communications is one of the Top 6 operators in the world with about 130 million customers.