MTN and Liquid Telecom have partnered in a deal that will see both companies boosted by a larger connectivity footprint across Africa.
The partnership enables MTN Group and Liquid Telecom to access each other's fixed and wireless networks in countries where one party may not currently have a presence. The deal covers wholesale, carrier-to-carrier, high-speed broadband, enterprise and fixed data services.
According to Liquid Telecom, the partnership is in response to the increasing demand from businesses across West Africa for the company's broadband services.
"We have a well-deserved reputation in East, Central and Southern Africa, for providing quality broadband to businesses. We are laying 100km of new fibre every week but have decided to partner for the time being in West Africa so that we can immediately meet demand from businesses there," says Nic Rudnick, CEO of The Liquid Telecom Group.
The partnership enables Liquid Telecom to offer businesses gigabit-speed services. The additional countries in which Liquid Telecom will now have a presence are Benin, Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Republic, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan and Swaziland.
The agreement with Liquid Telecom gives MTN the ability to service its multinational enterprise customers in Burundi, DRC, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.
MTN says the partnership furthers its ambition to be the ICT partner of choice for customers looking to expand geographically.
"This partnership will provide great benefits to our customers. We will be able to leverage each other's products and services to improve our offerings to carrier and enterprise customers in Africa, the Middle East and Europe," says Elia Tsouros, MTN's enterprise business unit head of global sales.
Tsouros says the combined footprints of both companies provides significant opportunity to customers.
Liquid Telecom's fibre network spans 20 000km across Burundi, DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe, and is complemented by its satellite service for rural areas. MTN has an extensive connectivity footprint, with points of presence for its global MPLS network in 22 countries.
Together the companies say they will be able to provision networks with complex requirements faster and sell each other's various services on the combined network, providing more choice.
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