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Oliver Kazunga Senior Business Reporter
LIQUID Telecom and MTN Group have partnered to offer their clients the largest fixed and wireless connectivity across the continent.

Liquid Telecom said the partnership, which covers wholesale, carrier-to-carrier, high speed broadband, enterprise and fixed data services, enables the two firms to access each other’s fixed and wireless networks in African countries where one party may not have presence.

“We’ve a well-deserved reputation in East, Central and Southern Africa, for providing quality broadband to businesses.

“We’re laying 100 kilometres 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,” Liquid Telecom Group chief executive officer, Nic Rudnick said in a statement.

He said their partnership enables Liquid Telecom to offer businesses gigabit-speed services accompanied by negotiated Service Level Agreements and excellent customer service.

The additional countries which Liquid Telecom will now have a presence in are Benin, Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Liberia, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan and Swaziland.

In addition, the agreement gives MTN the ability to service its multinational enterprise customers in Burundi, DRC, Tanzania and Zimbabwe.

MTN said the partnership reaffirms its commitment to inspire the growth of its enterprise customers across Africa and the rest of the world.

The agreement, MTN says, furthers its ambition to be the Information Communication Technology partner of choice for customers looking to expand geographically.

“This partnership will provide great benefits to our customers. We’ll 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.

“In addition, we’ve the opportunity to offer our customers services beyond our footprint, thanks to the combined footprints of both companies, as well as those of our partners.

“Furthermore, this partnership reinforces our extensive service offerings in the country and internationally,” MTN’s enterprise business unit head of global sales Elia Tsouros was quoted as saying.

Liquid Telecom’s fibre network spans 20,000km across Burundi, DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. It is complemented by its award-winning satellite service for rural areas.

On the other hand, MTN boasts of an extensive connectivity footprint in 22 countries, including South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Djibouti, UK, Netherlands, Nigeria, Cameroon, Zambia, Uganda, and Ghana.

It is hoped that Liquid Telecom and MTN would be able to provide networks with complex requirements faster and sell each other’s wholesale, carrier, enterprise and fixed services on the combined network – providing more choice to businesses of all sizes at competitive rates.