OREANDA-NEWS. Zain Group, a leading mobile telecom innovator across eight markets in the Middle East and Africa, has announced a new collaboration with datamena, the carrier neutral data centre and connectivity platform based in the UAE and serving the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region.

This new collaboration was announced during Capacity Middle East – the 10th edition of the annual flagship event for the Middle Eastern and international carrier communities, running between March 10 and 12 which brings together over 1,200 delegates representing more than 350 companies.

Through Zain’s presence in datamena, Zain operations across the region will expand their global reach by interconnecting directly with various partners including other regional and international carriers, content and cloud providers, and enterprises. Zain operations will be benefiting from state of the art infrastructure available in datamena, including the UAE Internet Exchange (UAE-IX).

Zain Group is a member of the Middle East Europe Terrestrial System (MEETS), which reaches into datamena and which will be connecting the GCC with high speed fibre optics when it is launched later this year.

Henri Kassab, Managing Director, International, Wholesale & Roaming of Zain Group said: “Given Zain Group’s strategic direction of transforming itself and becoming an integrated digital lifestyle mobile operator, it is critical that we bring a higher quality of data connectivity and content to our customers across the region. This collaboration with datamena will further enhance the internet experience we provide, helping Zain to retain and attract new customers as well as complement our LTE 4G expansion strategy and support our planned roll-out of dynamic Enterprise services to corporate clients.”

Fahad Al Hassawi, Chief Commercial Officer, du, said: “We are delighted to welcome Zain to datamena and to share their expertise and capabilities with our ecosystem of potential partners. As we welcome more world-leading operators like Zain to datamena, the more accessible and valuable it becomes for cloud, content and application providers as well as carriers globally. We look forward to support Zain’s success as it grows and develops its business."

Zain joins a growing list of over 70 companies that have chosen to use datamena’s secure platform of space, connectivity, infrastructure and expertise, to help them grow across the Middle East and the world.

About Zain Group

Zain is a leading telecommunications operator across the Middle East and Africa providing mobile voice and data services to over 44.3 million active customers as of 31 December, 2014. With a commercial presence in 8 countries, Zain operates in: Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and South Sudan. In Lebanon, the Group manages ‘touch’ on behalf of the government. In Morocco, Zain has a 15.5% stake in ‘INWI’, through a joint venture. Zain is listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (stock ticker: ZAIN).