[governance] Africa to launch own Internet exchange point
parminder
parminder at itforchange.net
Mon Oct 22 03:22:07 EDT 2012
Dear Alejandro,
Thanks for your response.
No, I have not been talking to the ISPs in India, and do not understand
the situation really well. However I have heard remarks that, even after
many years of setting up of India's national Internet exchange NIXI, a
very larger part of the domestic traffic still gets routed from outside
back to India.
It appears to me that compulsory exchange of traffic, on open peering
basis, with zero settlement charges, would be good for an open and
competitive Internet ecology. I read that NIXI in India has some
settlement arrangement based on requester pays. Possibly, some kind of
hybrid model which takes into account 'an overall framework' of actual
cost and benefit accruing among different sized ISPs may be possible to
evolve. (Of course, any kind of sender pays system is taboo, as it
contorts the very structure of the Internet.)
I do think that some amount of public interest regulation is requiredat
the transport layer of the Internetto keep the Internet as a really open
system, as was in the case with telephone traffic exchanged at PSTNs,
although the dynamics and thus the needed remedies in the case of the
Internet are different. The content/ applications layer however is a
completely different ball game and does not require similar 'public
utility' kind of regulatory attention. (There can however be issues when
some application providers becomes the monopoly provider of some basic
digital enablement or facilities. However the point of departure for the
required legal/ regulatory attention in such cases would be different -
for instance, like the current US FTC investigations into Google's
search engine practices.)
Regards
parminder
On Saturday 20 October 2012 05:41 PM, Alejandro Pisanty wrote:
> Parminder,
>
> Market power and large asymmetries in traffic are indeed a serious
> factor in this. Lots of good bilateral agreements between ISPs and
> good engineering go far in optimizing traffic in absence of an IXP.
> Forcing interconnection by law or government action seems tempting but
> bites back hard; need to collect case studies for further analysis.
> Are you talking to ISPs close by or do you have a study for India?
>
> Yours,
>
> Alejandro Pisanty
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> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From: * parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
> *Sender: * <governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org>
> *Date: *Sat, 20 Oct 2012 17:05:22 +0530
> *To: *<governance at lists.igcaucus.org>
> *ReplyTo: * <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>, parminder
> <parminder at itforchange.net>
> *Subject: *Re: [governance] Africa to launch own Internet exchange point
>
>
> Isnt one (biggest?) of the reasons of failures of most public interest
> IXPs is that there is no regulatory mechanism to ensure that traffic
> is exchanged at given national or regional exchanges, like there is
> for telephones. For which reason big ISPs/ carriers simply refuse to
> exchange traffic with the smaller ones in order to keep the market
> power advantage and not allow a level playing field. Just curious to know.
>
> parminder
>
>
>
> On Friday 19 October 2012 11:38 PM, Mawaki Chango wrote:
>> Thank you, Dawit, for this clarification that helps find answers to my
>> questions.
>>
>> Mawaki
>>
>> On Fri, Oct 19, 2012 at 9:07 AM, Dawit Bekele<bekele at isoc.org> wrote:
>>> 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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