Title: Current
1Current Future Status of National Regional
Internet Exchange Points in Africa
- Reducing costs and speeding up content delivery
NAPLA2003, Buenos Aires, Argentina 21st August
2003
2Introduction
- Brian Longwe
- General Manager, AfrISPA
- Chief Technology Officer, ISPKenya
- Senior Technical Analyst, PCH
- brian_at_pure-id.com
3Status of IXPs/NAPs in Africa
- South Africa JINX - est. 1997
- Zimbabwe ZIX - est. 1999
- Kenya KIXP - est. Feb. 2002
- Mozambique MOZ-IX - est. May 2002
- Egypt EG-IX - est. May 2002
- Kinshasa, DRC KINIX - est. December 2002
Uganda UIXP est. June 2003 - Tanzania TIXP- est. June2003
- Nigeria IBIX - est. April 2003
4Status of IXPs/NAPs in Africa
Out of 53 countries in Africa only 9 have
national IXPs
AfrISPAs African Internet Exchange Task Force -
AFIX-TF aims to facilitate the establishment of
up to 30 IXPs over the next 3 years
?
5Case Study KIXP
- KIXP online 14th February 2002
- Initially four ISPs were exchanging traffic
- Currently ten are exchanging traffic
- SwiftGlobal
- Kenyaweb
- ISPKenya
- UUNET Kenya
- Interconnect
- Wananchi Online
- AccessKenya
- Nairobinet
- Mitsuminet
- Insight Kenya
6Case Study KIXP
Quality of service and exchange of domestic
Kenyan IP traffic
7Case Study KIXP
Difference between international and domestic
leased line prices in Kenya. December 2000
8IXPs Things to Do
- Any Peering/IX initiative involves 10 technical
work - The remaining 90 is relationships
(socio-political engineering) - Official regulatory support
- Definition of internal peering policy framework
9Regional Internet Exchange Justifications
- Most African countries exchange Internet traffic
via countries in the West (and Asia) - African ISPs must purchase transit to African
destinations via US/European/Asian ISPs - This equates to an exportation of capital to
developed nations at the expense of developing
countries
10Regional Internet Exchange Justifications
Share of backbone connections to countries with
less than 5 ISPs Source OECD via Netcraft
11Regional Internet Exchange Justifications
- Independent Research shows that Africa loses over
US400 Million/yr for telecommunications traffic
exchange via other continents - The least developed continent in the world
- paying the most developed for internal
communications? - This does not make sense!
12Regional Internet Exchange Justifications
- A strong, domestic Internet industry creates
high-paying knowledge worker positions - Domestic traffic exchange reduces the importation
of foreign content and cultural values, in favor
of domestic content authoring and publishing
13Regional Internet Exchange Strategy
- Establishment of National Internet Exchange
Points - Create opportunities for the emergence of
Regional Carriers facilitating regional
peering/continental transit - Promote the development of cross-border links and
inter-country infrastructure
14Critical Factors for Regional IXPs/Regional
Carriers
- National Exchanges
- Political Support
- Policy Reform
- Regulatory Provisioning
- Regional Cooperation
- Strategic Partnerships
- Existence of Critical Infrastructure
- DIGITAL ARTERIES
15SAT-2, SAT-3/WASC/SAFE, SEA-ME-WE, ATLANTIS 2,
FLAG
Source CTiA Report 2002/03
Current African Submarine Fibre Connectivity
Mostly Perimeter
16Planned Intra-Country Fibre COMTEL
Source CTiA Report 2002/03
17Planned Intra-Country Fibre SRII
Source CTiA Report 2002/03
18Planned Intra-Country Fibre EADTP
Source CTiA Report 2002/03
19Current Initiatives
- AfrISPAs AFIX-TF
- 30 IXPs over next 3 years
- Connectivity Africas RXP Project
- Proof of Concept Regional Exchange Point
- Pan African Virtual Internet Exchange - PAVIX
- East African Marine Fiber
- Optical linkage between Durban and Djibouti
20Thank You!
- http//www.afrispa.org
- http//www.catia.ws
- http//www.connectivityafrica.org