O2 and BT Wholesale have struck a new long-term managed services agreement that will underpin O2's entry into the UK business market with fixed line and broadband services for the first time.

Through the new five year deal, O2 can provide its ‘Joined Up' communications services to business customers and will be able to stabilise its operational and investment costs by avoiding the capital-intensive and fixed cost route to market which a self build option presents. O2 will offer customers its own branded broadband and fixed-line telephony services, together with key support services provided by BT Wholesale.

BT Wholesale will design, manage and operate a dedicated order portal and service management centre for the provision of orders by the O2 sales teams. All end user contact services and end user billing will be provided by O2, with the BT Wholesale service management centre delivering second line help desk support.

The agreement cements the long-term strategic relationship between BT Wholesale and O2 in which BT Wholesale currently provides core network management support to O2's mobile customers.

Ronan Dunne CEO of O2 in the UK, said: "Working with BT Wholesale now gives us the opportunity to offer our business customers a true end to end service which incorporates fixed line services as well as mobile, data and unique consultancy that we already provide. BT Wholesale proved to be the right partner for us and their experience in providing this service in the UK will help us deliver quality O2 branded products and services."

Sally Davis, CEO at BT Wholesale, added: "As telecoms operators look to increase their revenues in today's capital constrained environment, they are increasingly choosing to partner with an experienced wholesaler to help them deliver a seamless and unified communications service for their customers. Through BT Wholesale's fully managed service, O2 can now expand into a new market with greater operational certainty and without the need for upfront capital investment."

The agreement is BT Wholesale's latest white-label managed service solution contract with a major UK communications provider. BT Wholesale has migrated more than 4.2 million UK homes and businesses to its white label managed platforms over the last two years.