[governance] Africa to launch own Internet exchange point

McTim dogwallah at gmail.com
Mon Oct 22 09:44:24 EDT 2012


JL,

On Mon, Oct 22, 2012 at 6:01 AM, Jean-Louis FULLSACK
<jlfullsack at orange.fr> wrote:
>
>
> Parminder's questioning is perfectly justified. I'd add another question :
> why are African IXP in place and idle ?

They are not idle by any means.  What do you mean by this?

 What a waste of precious money which
> would be employed for useful needs ... The root cause is always the same : a
> lack of consultation between the main actors of the ICT domain and the
> neoliberal credo "let's build, they'll come".This model failed to develop
> consistently any network at any level in Africa ! However, AU and the ITU
> still support it.
>
>
>
> At the very beginning of the WSIS I proposed -with the agreement of the CS
> Plenary- that NW operators and ICT main actors select the relevant sites
> where IXPs should be created having in mind both the (present ans future)
> Internet traffic to be exchanged there and the state and evolution of the
> telecom backbone networks. This proposal, although it has been reiterated
> different times in different prepcoms and during the WSIS follow-up process,
> has never collected the consens of the main parties involved, namely the AU
> and the ITU.
>
>
>
> "Cherchez l'erreur" as we use to say in France.
>
>
>
> Best
>
>
>
> Jean-Louis Fullsack
>
>
>
> BTW : I'd also Thank Mawaki Chango for his 10.19. mail to the list. I'll try
> to answer his questions later.
>
>
>
>
>> Message du 20/10/12 13:35
>> De : "parminder"
>> A : governance at lists.igcaucus.org
>> Copie à :
>> Objet : 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  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
>
>
>
> 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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-- 
Cheers,

McTim
"A name indicates what we seek. An address indicates where it is. A
route indicates how we get there."  Jon Postel

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