U.S. telecoms operator AT&T and Finnish network equipment maker Nokia have signed a multi-year expansion agreement to upgrade AT&T's voice carriage and 5G network automation in the U.S., the Finnish company said on Tuesday.

AT&T and Nokia agreed a multi-year contract extension for the Finnish vendor to support the operator in evolving its voice core offering.

As part of this upgrade, AT&T will add Voice over New Radio (VoNR) and move its Nokia IMS Voice Core to a cloud-based system. This will help the company roll out new services faster, cut costs, and improve automation.

Nokia (NOK) and AT&T (T) signed a multi-year expansion agreement to upgrade the American company's voice carriage and 5G network automation in the U.S.

After AT&T's $14 billion five-year deal with Ericsson, Nokia announced in September a smaller five-year deal with AT&T to build a fibre network in the U.S., before locking a second one on Tuesday for cloud-based voice core applications and the use of Nokia's network automation software.

AT&T partners with Nokia in a multi-year expansion deal to enhance voice and automation services, strengthening network capabilities.

Shares of Nokia Corp. (NOK) rose 1.5% in pre-market trade on Tuesday after the company expanded its multi-year deal with AT&T Inc. (T) to upgrade its network. AT&T will leverage Nokia’s 5G IP multimedia system (IMS) and digital operations software to improve its deployment times and drive operational efficiencies.