Which two European companies run the biggest wireless networks in the world, with a combined 355 million customers?
If you are thinking of the top mobile operators — Vodafone, Telefónica, T-Mobile or Orange — you would be wrong. The right answer: Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks. That’s right. In the past six years, these wireless equipment makers have become two of the largest mobile network operators in the world. Telephone companies hire them to manage the flow of voice, text and data among their subscribers. As the economy stumbles across the globe, mobile operators are not only sharing base stations and other hardware to save money, as Vodafone and Telefónica agreed to do for their European networks last month. They are also increasing their reliance on Ericsson and Nokia Siemens to operate their networks. Thus far, mobile operators in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East are doing most of the outsourcing, according to industry executives. U.S. companies have taken a go-slow approach, farming out the operations of a few services, like text messaging or prepaid billing. In Europe, most su
