MTN Ivory Coast has teamed up with Flexenclosure and Leadcom to build a multi-million dollar, 336 sqm data centre complete with a 168 sqm switching centre, an 84 sqm energy centre and an 84 sqm hosted data centre.
Set to be commissioned Q1 2014, the data centre will be stationed in Abidjan and will both function as a switching centre and a data centre . Flexenclosure will do the full turnkey project plus all the civil work and installation.
“The new eCentre will provide us with increased network availability, stability and geographical redundancy, and the data hosting capability will allow us to provide new value-added services to our clients,” added Jerome Curtis, General Manager Capital Programs, MTN Côte d’Ivoire.
The custom build data centre will have eight eCentre modules, will be a prefabricated data centre solution that is fast to deploy, energy efficient and easy to expand. Built in Sweden and equipped to house and power data and telecom equipment, it is fully future proof.
”We are delighted to extend our long-standing relationship with MTN into another country,” said David King, CEO, Flexenclosure. ”This deal is yet another proof point for pre-fabricated solutions being the way of the future when it comes to service providers managing the on-going explosion in data traffic. eCentre’s unrivalled flexibility, reliability, scalability and speed of deployment makes it an attractive choice for operators wanting to expand network capacity fast.”
Though new in the country, Flexenclosure laid 4,500 sqm of eCentres for MTN in Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon through third-party firms. Flexenclosure’s eCentre is therefore a tried and tested solution in the MTN group.
The data centre will help MTN Ivory Coast switch from a traditional telephone market, based on voice and SMS, to a more mature phase where the mobile phone is increasingly used for services such as broadband Internet, money transfer and services such as Video on demand, tracking, among others.
“To that purpose, we want the best equipment to meet those needs now and in the future”, Wim Vanhelleputte, CEO of MTN Côte d’Ivoire, concluded.