Liquid Telecom has announced that it is investing 8 billion Egyptian Pounds ($400m US Dollars) in Egypt over the next three years for network infrastructure and data centres.
The investment is part of a major partnership with Telecom Egypt which was made during a signing ceremony between the two companies on Saturday 8 December at the Africa 2018 Forum .
According to the Group Executive Chairman of Liquid Telecom’s parent company Econet, Mr Strive Masiyiwa, the next mission is to complete a link between Cairo and Dakar Senegal through Sudan, Chad, and Nigeria, as well as the rest of West Africa.
“We have already crossed Africa from East to West through Sudan and Chad. We are at the Nigerian border and we expect to reach Abuja by the end of January in time for the AU Summit. We want to reach Dakar before President El-Sisi finishes his term,” he said.
Telecom Egypt will use the network to connect Egyptian businesses to the rest of Africa, whilst also partnering with Liquid Telecom to build data centres across Egypt.
Following an initial investment of $50m in data centres and cloud services, Liquid Telecom plans to invest an additional $350m in broadband and financial inclusion initiatives, as well as high capacity data centres. These will be similar to some of the best-in-class data centres in South Africa.
Liquid Telecom’s expanding network is almost 70,000km in length and is linked to more than 600 towns and cities in 13 countries across Africa. It is also part of the wider ‘One Africa’ broadband network which has been strongly supported by the African Union leadership and President Kagame, Chairman of the African Union. President El-Sisi welcomed the development as a major milestone in connecting the African continent with Egypt and said he would continue to push the initiative during his tenure next year as Chair of the AU’s 54 nation body.
The Liquid Telecom and Telecom Egypt deal is the first direct land-based terrestrial fibre link from Cape Town to Cairo and will enable Liquid Telecom to significantly expand its position as a connectivity and cloud solutions provider in North Africa, serving businesses in the region with world-class network and data centre services through its data centre offering, Africa Data Centres (ADC).
