BT fans out its Turkey, Middle East and Africa network, service presence

BT (NYSE: BT) is responding to its global customers' moves to ramp up their respective investments in Turkey, the Middle East and Africa (MEA) by conducting a number of network and services initiatives in those regions.

In Africa, BT is enhancing network reach and access options in sub-Saharan Africa, including its recent installation of an international routing facility in South Africa and a new network connection between Cape Town and Johannesburg. It will then complement its own network buildout by establishing interconnection agreements with local service provider partners to extend its reach into sub-Saharan Africa.

The service provider will open up three new network nodes in the Middle East and establish more network interconnection agreements with local service provider partners in Turkey.

Having a mix of both its own network infrastructure and partners will enable BT to support a range of BT's IT networked service portfolios, including BT Assure, BT One, BT Contact, and BT Compute.

Already serving 600 large businesses throughout MEA and Turkey, BT is hardly a stranger to these regions. But with IDC forecasting that IT spending growth across the regions will grow beyond 10 percent this year, the timing for this new initiative couldn't be better.

The new investments in MEA region and Turkey are part of a broader global strategy to serve global business customers.

Since 2010, the service provider launched similar initiatives in both Asia Pacific and Latin America. These two regions have, according to BT, seen business service orders rise over 50 percent during the first nine months of this financial year.

Similar to its build up in both Asia Pacific and Latin America, BT will hire about 170 new employees that will provide on the ground local customer support in addition to consulting, integration and managed services.

For more:
- see the release

Special report: Wireline in the fourth quarter 2011

Related articles:
Verizon, BT establish global telepresence agreement
BT's cost cutting helps offset fiscal Q3 revenue decline
BT to expand its Latin America network, service presence
BT prepares to grow Asia-Pacific business
TeleGeography: Partnerships key to scaling international VPN coverage