
Airtel Africa and Liquid Telecom have signed an agreement for a terrestrial fibre network to connect Airtel's mobile base stations and enterprises. The framework agreement enables Airtel operations to use Liquid Telecom's existing 20,000 km fibre network across East, Central and Southern Africa. Airtel will also be able to use new, purpose-built fibre infrastructure to connect its mobile base stations and enterprise customers with fibre.
According to Liquid Telecom, the agreement answers the need for mobile operators to increase the internet speed delivered over their mobile broadband networks. Nic Rudnick, Group CEO of Liquid Telecom, says mobile operators are relying on Internet access and data services to grow their revenues. MNOs, and in particular Airtel, have managed to attract a large number of customers on their 3G and 4G networks and now need to strengthen their backhaul.