One of the United States' biggest telecommunications providers is taking on the Australian market, after signing an agreement with NextDC.

The third largest telecommunications company in the United States, CenturyLink is expanding its footprint into Australia to offer access to its full suite of managed hybrid IT services, which includes network, managed hosting services, colocation and cloud.

The managed hosting and colocation services can be accessed through NExtDC's network of data centers in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra and Perth and CenturyLink says it will deploy its own public cloud service within Australia later this year.

The deal with NextDC will see both companies selling into each other's data centers.

Gery Messer, CenturyLink Asia Pacific managing director, notes Australia is one of the most connected countries in the world.

“The extension of CenturyLink's data center footprint into Australia signifies our commitment to serve growing customer demand for IT services in the Asia Pacific region.

Craig Scroggie, NextDC chief executive, says CenturyLink is an important new member of NextDC's ecosystem of carriers, cloud and IT service providers.

“It's presence will essentially open up a world of new possibilities for Australian organisations on their journey to a hybrid cloud model.