AMS-IX, MDXi Launch Internet Exchange in Lagos

Emma Okonji

AMS-IX, one of the largest Internet Exchange operators in the world, and  MDXi, an Equinix company, have partnered to launch a new Internet Exchange in Lagos, Nigeria. 

The new Internet Exchange, AMS-IX Lagos, is situated in the carrier-neutral data centre of MDXi, an Equinix Company. Under terms of the partnership, MDXi will serve as the commercial partner of AMS-IX and regional sales and marketing arm for AMS-IX Lagos. AMS-IX will run the technical and operational management of the exchange.

According to a statement released  by MDXi, AMS-IX Lagos aims to become an important content hub for West Africa, enabling regional and local ISPs, carriers, and internet exchanges to aggregate content from large global Content Delivery Networks, hosting companies and application providers. In the coming months, MDXi, an Equinix Company and AMS-IX will focus on seeking alliances with local telecom operators and IX’s and supporting local ecosystems.

AMS-IX Lagos will launch with over 25 connected networks as AMS-IX and MDXi, an Equinix Company migrate and onboard the existing connected networks of West Africa Internet Exchange (WAF-IX) in the coming month. Connected networks at WAF-IX include large CDNs and application providers such as Cloudflare, Microsoft and Google.

Chief Executive Officer  of AMS-IX, Peter van Burgel, said: “We intend to add value to the local carriers and IX’s by attracting even more content players to the region and support the local connectivity community. This is a very exciting project for us as we see it as an important steppingstone for bringing low-latency affordable Internet available for the West-African region.”  

Director, MDXi, an Equinix Company, Funke Opeke, said: “The partnership enables MDXi deliver value to the rich ecosystem of network operators, carriers, content providers, cloud services providers, and enterprises that we have present in the data center. The AMS-IX partnership will help MDXi consolidate its role as content hub not just for Nigeria, but for Francophone and English-speaking West and Central Africa.”

AMS-IX (Amsterdam Internet Exchange) is a neutral member-based association that operates multiple interconnection platforms around the world. Its leading platform in Amsterdam has been playing a crucial role at the core of the internet for almost 30 years and is one of the largest hubs for internet traffic in the world with over 11 Terabits per second (Tbps) of peak traffic.

AMS-IX also manages the world’s first mobile peering points like the Global Roaming Exchange (GRX), the Mobile Data Exchange (MDX) and the Internetwork Packet Exchange (I-IPX) interconnection points.

MDXi, an Equinix company is West Africa’s leading data center company. Its carrier neutral data centers with combined capacity of 5 MW across the key markets of Nigeria, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire provide access to all leading internet exchanges, network providers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in the West African region.