U Mobile, the fourth largest mobile player in Malaysia, extended a five-year managed services contract with Ericsson, which is converting the operator’s business support system (BSS) into a real-time converged platform.

Originally signed in 2012, the agreement was extended for another five years until 2022. In the ongoing contract, Ericsson is responsible for competence development, solution design, deployment and systems integration of the convergent billing solutions, and managed services.

Ericsson said in a statement its BSS platform will enable U Mobile to offer a wider range of services including real-time promotions and notifications, product and services cross bundling, real-time cost control for post paid subscriptions, subscriber personalisation, and flexible mobile wallets.

The operator had 5.5 million mobile connections, giving it a 13 per cent market share at end-2017, GSMA Intelligence data showed.

U Mobile CEO Wong Heang Tuck said the company needed “to ensure we actively reduce time to market in a way that would not affect customer experience,” adding Ericsson’s billing products had “played a role in enabling our customers to enjoy our new services more quickly and efficiently.”

Todd Ashton, head of Ericsson Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, said the vendor delivered fully-converged business and customer support to U Mobile.