Through its Altice Wholesale Solutions business, MEO has again chosen iBASIS as its preferred partner including for outbound SMS and 5G traffic
Portugal’s largest converged operator, MEO (formerly Portugal Telecom) has renewed its outsourcing agreement with iBASIS as its preferred partner for international voice and mobile services. MEO is part of the Altice Group and the contract is between MEO’s subsidiary Altice Wholesale Solutions and iBASIS.
The latter describes itself as “the leading provider of communications solutions for operators and digital players worldwide”.
iBASIS will also open an IPX Point of Presence (PoP) in MEO’s newly established Linda-a-Velha (LdV) data centre. The carrier-neutral facility will enable iBASIS to leverage Lisbon’s strategic European location. It has one of the closest proximities to the Americas and Western Africa, and is becoming an increasingly important submarine cable landing hub.
Alexander Freese, COO at Altice, commented, “We have been working very closely with iBASIS for many years and, together, we have forged strong relationships across multiple teams to better address our business requirements. We aim to continue our growth momentum to provide fast and reliable services to millions of roamers.”
“We have expanded the collaboration to provide our full range of global services – voice, data, signaling, SMS, and 5G – and leverage our IPX network to support their impressive growth,” said Edwin van Ierland, CEO of Voice and Mobile Data at iBASIS. “It’s truly a win-win partnership, leveraging our distinct capabilities and know-how to create new revenue opportunities.”
Alexander Pébereau added, “We are thrilled with the opportunity to bring iBASIS into the Linda-a-Velha data centre, allowing more diversity and connection opportunities to our network…Together we invest, we evolve, and we strengthen the international communications ecosystem.”
MEO – or possibly a stake in it – is up for sale as the Altice Group continues to sell off assets in an effort to reduce its €60 billion debt. It is though stc is the frontrunner after the consortium led by Antonio Horta-Osorio dropped out.