AW: [governance] Africa to launch own Internet exchange point

Mon Oct 22 03:37:02 EDT 2012

Parminder,

I recommend to consult Rajesh Chharia so that you can understand the situation in India better. He is the president of the Indian ISP Association. (rc at cjnet4u.com). He was with our ICANN Studienkreis meeting in Oslo and I had good discussion with him in Toronto. He would be also a good contact to discuss Internet Governance issues and enhanced cooperation.    

BTW, I was listening carefully to what your Minister Sachin Pilot had to say in Budapest to enhanced cooperation. An interesting move which was also recognized by Fadi in his opening speech as ICANNs CEO in Toronto. 

Wolfgang

________________________________

Von: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org im Auftrag von parminder
Gesendet: Mo 22.10.2012 09:22
An: apisan at unam.mx
Cc: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
Betreff: Re: [governance] Africa to launch own Internet exchange point

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 required at the transport layer of the Internet to 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> <mailto:parminder at itforchange.net>  
	Sender: <governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org> <mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org>  
	Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2012 17:05:22 +0530
	To: <governance at lists.igcaucus.org> <mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org> 
	ReplyTo: <governance at lists.igcaucus.org> <mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org> , parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> <mailto: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> <mailto: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> <mailto: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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