[governance] Africa to launch own Internet exchange point

[Jean-Louis FULLSACK]

 Dear members of the list The basic issue in Africa isn't the lack of IXPs, since there are around thirty ones. Of course this number is to be extended and spatial distribution is to be improved, and the Gambia IXP is a step in this direction. But there is a lack of appropriate networks at the national, regional and continental level. In most cases there are a more or less continuous series of optical fiber or microwave routes but not a consistent, survivable network. This strongly limits the very functions of the IXPs i.e. switching, routing and thereby maintaining IP traffic that is exchanged in specific spaces (country, sub-region, part of African continent) in their respective limits, saving high costs of transiting through out-of-Africa Internet nodes and consequently bandwidth waste on international routes. Finally, there are severe power issues in most countries that limit seriously the availability of both the IXPs and the interconnecting network(s). Of course, some progress has been done for improving this situation but the (expensive) efforts lack a minimum of consistency and therefore take too much time for being efficient. Reponsibility for this mismanagement is mainly the neoliberal ruling that promotes hard competition instead of genuine networking, but also the African Union and the ITU, despite the n°1 and 2 of which are Africans. Best regards Jean-Louis Fullsack




> Message du 18/10/12 21:10
> De : "David Conrad" 
> A : governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> Copie à : 
> Objet : Re: [governance] Africa to launch own Internet exchange point
> 
> Hi Norbert,
> 
> On Oct 18, 2012, at 12:18 PM, Norbert Klein wrote:
> > I thought it was also interesting that this effort of ISOC is reported here by Xinhua via the China Daily. Maybe an indication that the internationally experienced and active hardware supplier Huawei will help the Banjul efforts, and whoever will by trained with the experience of ISOC when new IXP will be set up in more places in Africa.
> 
> My understanding is that the training (done by folks from ISOC partnering with AfriNIC and other Africa-based organizations is technology neutral. I'm told by one of the folks involved in Gambia that they expect the IXP to be set up in 6 months or so. As far as I know, there hasn't been any decision on hardware in the IXP.
> 
> Regards,
> -drc
> 
> 
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