As More Players Spring Up, Stakeholders Optimistic Nigeria Will Become Major Internet Exchange Hub in Africa

Emma Okonji

Folowing the rise in the establishment of Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) in Nigeria, occasioned by the increasing demand for data and internet connectivity, industry stakeholders are of the view that Nigeria will soon become the major Internet Exchange Hub in Africa.

Their optimism is hinged on the fact that established IXPs in Nigeria are already extending access to internet connectivity across Africa.

The recent historic entrance of additional two IXPs: AMS-IX and AF-CIX from MDXi and Rack Centre respectively, into the Nigerian internet space, brings the total number of established IXPs in Nigeria to seven, a development that has positioned Nigeria as future Internet Exchange Hub in Africa, given the infrastructural capacities of the international IXPs that have established in Nigeria.

Pleased with the growth and expansion of IXPs in Nigeria, the Chief Executive Officer, Internet Xchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), Mr. Mohammed Rudman, told THISDAY that the rise of IXPs in Nigeria would lead to increased domestication of data, reduction in the cost of internet access and exchange cost, with reduced latency in interconnectivity.    

Head, Interconnection and Exchange Platform at Rack centre, Mr. Obinna Adumike, said multiple IXPs in the African regional markets, would improve the quality and reliability of the internet. 

According to Rudman, in Africa, internet access is predominantly via mobile devices, and the Internet Xchange Points (IXPs) are connected to all the network operators in the ecosystem, for the exchange of internet traffic.

“IXPs have formed network access points, through which institutions and organisations can connect to the internet. In Nigeria, locally domesticated internet traffic has increased from 30 per cent to 70 per cent within the last seven years. As of today, Nigeria is at level two, where at least 70 per cent of the internet traffic from major service providers is connected to the IXPN, while only about 30 per cent of internet traffic is connected to international exchanges,” Rudman said.  

AMS-IX, which launched in Nigeria last week, is one of the largest Internet Exchange operators in the world. It partnered MDXi, an Equinix company, to launch a new Internet Exchange in Lagos, Nigeria.  

The new Internet Exchange, AMS-IX Lagos, is situated in the carrier-neutral data center 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 is expected run the technical and operational management of the exchange.

AMS-IX Lagos aims to become an important content hub for West Africa, enabling regional and local Internet Service Providers (ISPs), carriers, and Internet Exchanges to aggregate content from large global content delivery networks, hosting companies and application providers.

CEO 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.”

In a related development, AF-CIX has also been launched in Nigeria to boost internet speed and improve network performance for Internet Service Providers, Content Delivery Networks, Cloud Providers and Enterprises.

The platform is hosted in Rack Centre as part of innovations to support the growth of the internet in Africa through effective and functional traffic localisation, enterprise digitisation acceleration, and community support.

Speaking on the innovation, Adumike explained that integrating AF-CIX to DE-CIX would no doubt help Nigerian businesses have direct access to the entire portfolio of DE-CIX, thereby offering them access to networks in more than 150 cities and over 80 countries. He stated that with the platform, participants or businesses would enjoy the largest aggregation of cloud, content, with direct integration to more than 20 IXPs across the globe.