Pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom plans to inject $400-million into Egypt’s network infrastructure and data centres over the next three years.
This follows the signing of a partnership agreement between Telecom Egypt, which is working to connect Egyptian businesses to the rest of Africa through its network, and Liquid’s parent company Econet.
Following an initial investment of $50-million in data centres and cloud services, Liquid plans to invest an additional $350-million in broadband and financial inclusion initiatives, as well as high-capacity data centres.
Liquid’s expanding network is almost 70 000 km in length and is linked to more than 600 towns and cities in 13 countries across Africa, including the first direct land-based terrestrial fibre link between Cape Town, in South Africa, and Cairo, in Egypt.
The $400-million investment will enable Liquid 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, Liquid is facilitating the growth of Africa’s Cloud by providing a platform for cloud services to be delivered locally in many markets for the first time,” said Econet group executive chairperson Strive Masiyiwa.
Liquid now aims to complete a link between Cairo and Dakar, in 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 African Union Summit,” he said.