[governance] Africa to launch own Internet exchange point

Fri Oct 19 09:07:42 EDT 2012

Hi all,

As the implementer of the African Union's African Internet Exchange System
(AXIS) project under which this workshop in Gambia is organized, I would
like to give some information on this particular workshop and the AXIS
project in general. The AXIS project is an African Union project that aims
at promoting the development of IXPs around Africa. The first phase of the
project consists of organizing IXP Best practice workshops in 30 African
countries where there is no IXP followed by technical workshops in these
same countries. The Internet Society has been selected by the African
Regional Bureau to implement this phase in a period of 2 years. I have
attached a press release concerning AXIS (sorry the website is not ready
yet).

The African Union and indeed the Internet society are conscious that setting
up an IXP is not an end by itself and there are many IXPs that never took
off from the ground. This is why the Best Practice workshops will discuss
about what works and what doesn't work based one the experiences of IXPs in
Africa ad around the world. The facilitators that we send to these workshops
have practical experience in developing IXPs and can advise the stakeholders
invited at the workshops on the way forward.

As David rightly mentioned the training is technology neutral. Every country
follows its own pace in developing the IXPs. The Internet Society and the
African Union can only advise the stakeholders on the steps to take.  We
organized these workshops in four countries in the last two months: Burkina
Faso, Burundi, Senegal and Gambia. We will organize the following workshops
in the coming two months:

Namibia	23 - 25 October
Guinea		30 Oct- Nov 1
Niger                     6-8 November
Benin		13-15 November

Most countries where we have organized the workshops have adopted a clear
plan to set-up an IXP within a few months and established task forces to
that effect, as in the case of the Gambia.

Finally, AXIS is not an isolated program but part of a holistic ICT
development plan for  Africa (African Regional Action Plan on the Knowledge
Economy -ARAPKE). AXIS is one of the 11 flagship projects of the ARAPKE
(attached description).

Best regards,
Dawit Bekele
Director, African Regional Bureau
Internet Society

> -----Original Message-----
> From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:governance-
> request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Mawaki Chango
> Sent: Friday, October 19, 2012 1:33 PM
> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Jean-Louis FULLSACK
> Subject: Re: [governance] Africa to launch own Internet exchange point
> 
> Thanks, Jean-Louis! That was part of the reason why I was surprised an IXP
in
> Africa would make such headline still today, and why I was wondering about
> any integrated strategy from the part of AU. Without a vision that takes
into
> account elements you have outlined, it's hard to appreciate real, long
term
> progress.
> 
> In your view, what are we missing right now in order to develop a
> "consistent, survivable network" keeping in mind that Africa is a huge
place
> where policy is mainly made through government planning, etc.?
> Where does it make more sense to start from --both technically and
> strategically-- in order to realize that "minimum of consistency"
> which can make any subsequent efforts more efficient? I think any long
term
> advocacy effort in Africa should itself be led by a vision of this kind,
where
> policy goals are well informed by technology capabilities and best
practices,
> and then try to win over policy-makers to it.
> 
> A whole other challenge is, of course, to get policy-makers and any
> incumbent stakeholders to embrace the notion (and reality) of creative
> destruction, which has never been a given in any place at any era.
> Here I can only think of CS using a range of strategies and tactics and
sharing
> information globally in order to help shape the events and try to shift
the
> power dynamics.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Mawaki
> otherwise Africa Internet Policy coordinator at APC, the one and only
> Association for Progressive Communications :)
> 
> On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 3:36 AM, Jean-Louis FULLSACK
<jlfullsack at orange.fr>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> > 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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> >
> >
> >
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