Telecommunications giant MTN and Liquid Telecom on Monday announced a partnership that would see the duo leverage each others' fixed and wireless networks and combining their respective footprints to reach more business customers across Africa and in Europe.

The deal would enable the parties to access customers in regions where they do not have their own presence, such as Benin, Cameroon, Congo Brazzaville, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Nigeria, Sudan, South Sudan and Swaziland for Liquid, and Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Tanzania and Zimbabwe for MTN.

The partnership covered wholesale, carrier-to-carrier, high-speed broadband, enterprise and fixed-data services and would enable Liquid Telecom and MTN to provision networks with complex requirements faster and sell each other’s wholesale, carrier, enterprise and fixed services on the combined network.

“We have a well-deserved reputation in East, Central and Southern Africa, for providing quality broadband to businesses. We are laying 100 km of new fibre every week but have decided to partner [with MTN] for the time being in West Africa so that we can immediately meet demand from businesses there,” Liquid CEO Nic Rudnick said in a statement on Monday.

MTN Enterprise head of global sales Elia Tsouros added that the partnership furthered the operator’s ambition of becoming the information and communication technology “partner of choice” for customers looking to expand geographically.

The agreement enabled MTN to offer its customers services beyond its own footprint.

Liquid Telecom’s fibre network spanned 20 000 km across Burundi, the DRC, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe and was complemented by a satellite service for rural areas.

MTN had points of presence in 22 countries, including South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Djibouti, the UK, Netherlands, Nigeria, Cameroon, Zambia, Uganda, Ghana, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Cyprus, Benin, Guinea Conakry, Congo Brazzaville, Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and Botswana.