New and existing MTN Business customers will get access to a raft of solutions, including cloud-based security and consultancy, managed connectivity, and voice services, from BT’s portfolio.
BT said that MTN will also tap into BT’s wide range of unified communications and collaboration (UCC) solutions, including the provision of wholesale voice, Microsoft Teams voice, and global SIP solutions.
That implies that BT has largely taken over the wholesale role previously supplied by BICS. MTN was a shareholder in BICS until early 2021, when Belgian operator Proximus took 100% control by buying out MTN’s 20% and Swisscom’s 22.4% stakes for €569 million.
The deal is with MTN South Africa but extends to the whole MTN group. South African-based MTN has 270 million customers, most of them in Africa but including Afghanistan, Cyprus and Iran. It sold its Yemeni business for a reported one Emirati dirham (about US$0.27) last year.
Wanda Matandela (pictured), MTN’s chief enterprise business officer, said: “MTN Business continues to deliver innovative solutions to ensure the benefits of the digital economy are expanded to more people and entities across Africa. As this growth happens, however, it is imperative to manage risk. MTN Business is excited about the potential this alliance has to offer and is committed to providing solutions that ensure businesses thrive in the digital economy of the future.”
MTN will sell the solutions as part of its own enterprise portfolio, meeting local regulatory and compliance requirements. The two operators will collaborate closely to enhance each other’s strengths, said BT.
Alessandro Adriani, BT’s indirect sales director, said: “We look forward to working with MTN to bring the same cutting-edge services and solutions to businesses across the African continent.”
Last week BT announced an upgrade of its UK-focused business operations, saying it will invest almost £100 million to accelerate the development of customer solutions which integrate emerging technologies like 5G, IoT, edge compute, cloud and artificial intelligence (AI). It added that it was launching “sophisticated cyber defence and assessment tools which are not currently offered by other UK network providers”.
The first offering by BT and MTN will be a security operations centre (SOC)-service, which will enable MTN’s customers to monitor and improve their cyber security “while preventing, detecting, analysing, and responding to cyber-security incidents”. This is based on BT’s cloud-based security incident and event management service.
BT said its security team will providing 24×7 monitoring and in-life support to MTN’s existing and new customers.
