AT&T and Nokia agreed a multi-year contract extension for the Finnish vendor to support the operator in evolving its voice core offering, in addition to aiding its network automation push in the US.

The US operator stated the deal would help it deliver on its vision of securely “providing customer-focused networks and automation” which drive new services.

It will use the Nokia Cloud Platform (NCP) to streamline network activities, enhance automation and minimise manual intervention.

The agreement also covers AT&T’s aim to evolve its IMS voice core to include Voice over New Radio.

It explained the update will bring a fully cloud-native architecture offering flexible scaling and increased automation, improving time-to-market for new services and yielding greater cost savings.

AT&T will also use Nokia Digital Operations software designed for multi-vendor networks, bolstering its capabilities to “automate the design, delivery and assurance of customer services at scale”.

The deal is a boost to Nokia, which lost a major AT&T contract to build open RAN platforms to rival Ericsson in late 2023 as the operator works to run 70 per cent of its traffic over such infrastructure by late 2026.

Nokia has since struck smaller deals with AT&T, including a multi-year fibre network tie-up.

Yigal Elbaz, SVP of Technology and Network Services at AT&T, said it continues to make excellent progress in realising automation at all levels of its network and service operations.

Raghav Sahgal, president of Cloud and Network Services at Nokia, added it fully understands “the important journey AT&T is on” to “glean more value from its network”.