MTN Group is to offer Amazon Web Services (AWS) Direct Connect to business customers in Africa, and claims it would be the first to provide the service to multiple countries on the continent.

The new service will leverage the footprint of MTN's Global MPLS network, to provide customers with connectivity between their data centres or businesses and the AWS EU Ireland region.

According to a media statement this will give enterprises across Africa a dedicated link with which they can access the flexible, scalable and reliable AWS cloud.

"The relationship with Amazon Web Services is an important step in our plans to address the needs of enterprise customers in emerging markets, particularly Africa," says MTN Group Chief Enterprise Officer, Mteto Nyati.

"As MTN Business, our purpose is to enable and inspire growth on the continent. We believe that by working with a global technology leader such as Amazon Web Services, MTN will be better placed to enable customers to grow their businesses by providing them with reliable connectivity and access to world-class digital solutions," says Nyati.

MTN says its Global MPLS network connectivity is designed to improve manageability, reliability and performance.

AWS Direct Connect is expected to bring significant benefits to multinational and large enterprise customers by providing a more consistent network performance when they access AWS.

"We are excited to be working with MTN to bring the security and reliability of AWS Direct Connect to customers across Africa," said Steve Midgley, Head of EMEA, Amazon Web Services Luxembourg Sarl. "By utilising AWS Direct Connect, customers are able to reduce network costs, increase bandwidth throughput and provide a more consistent network experience, helping African businesses of all sizes to rapidly expand their organisations."

Among the benefits the partners foresee for customers, in addition to good quality of service, is a reduction of bandwidth costs. This is because the dedicated connection to AWS will result in a lower data transfer rate than normal internet data transfer rates they say.

MTN has also announced its intention to enhance its Cloud offering with new services in the coming months.