Mobile company Vodafone Hutchison Australia (VHA) has announced Thursday that it has acquired the services of Nokia Siemens Network to run the company's network operations which covers equipment supply and service management.

VHA is the joint venture between Vodafone Australia and Hutchison Telecommunications Australia Ltd (HTA) and currently enlist more than six million active subscribers as of December 2009.

In a report by AAP, VHA chief executive Nigel Dews hailed the deal as a milestone for the company "to deliver an improved network experience for our customers and realise important cost efficiencies following the merger."

The deal will require Nokia Siemens to combine the existing operations organisations of the two companies and consolidate the two core networks.

Nokia Siemens is also set to help VHA migrate to a single database that will hold the merged companies' subscriber information.

Nokia Siemens Networks country head for Australia and New Zealand Kalevi Kostiainen is upbeat that "the company's global experience and expertise in managed services will introduce further improvements on VHA's overall network operations and services to its customers."

VHA chief technology officer Andy Reeves told AAP that unifying the two companies' core networks and simplifying their network management would result to better customer experience and lead to streamlined and efficient operations.

The two telcos had revealed February last year about their merger plans and this latest development came amidst the merged entities on-going campaign to increase network coverage and address subscribers' increasing need for data access as part of VHA's long-term branding and network strategies.