Nigeria still proved why it is often regarded as the leading light of Africa’s technology business when Last week it was elevated to the status of hub to West Africa’s internet exchange point. This is not totally strange considering the progress the country is making in internet penetration. For instance, out of the country’s estimated over 186 million population, internet users in the country grew to 82,094,998 in 2015, representing 45.1 percent penetration of the population. However, that number has also moved up in 2016 to 86,219,965, representing 46.1 percentage of the population. Again, for a country that connects 2.5 percent of the world’s internet users, leading the West African regional internet exchange point fits like second skin. Core network infrastructure Achieving this milestone, was under the supervision of the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) which primarily focuses on localizing internet traffic in Nigeria by interconnecting Nigerian networks.
IXPN, a core network infrastructure provider company deliberately allows several Internet Service Providers, ISPs, Telecommunications companies, Carriers, and Content Providers to exchange traffic among their networks locally. Dexterity: MD/CEO of IXPN, Muhammed Rudman, in reaction to the new development, described it as the country’s dexterity in successfully vying in the Africa Union Commission’s, AUC, African Internet Exchange System, AXIS project for a Regional Internet Exchange Point, RIXP for West Africa. Rudman said that the new development has moved IXPN from national to a regional level. Its infrastructure shall be upgraded, in consonance to its new rules to ensure a more resilient operation in the function of connecting all other Internet Exchange Points in the region and to accentuate its capacity to handle the traffic coming thereby.
According to Rudman, “the fact that the regional IXP for West Africa is domiciled in Nigeria should leap frog the nation to the information hub in the West African sub-region. It will,invariably,boost patronage of complementary and ancillary services in Nigeria from telecom companies, content providers and other IP-centric organisations in the region”. “Becoming the regional IXP holds great prospects for the Nigeria economy. Typically, if the big telcos and ISPs across the region connect to us, it will make the country the main hub for information communication exchange within the region, which would eventually attract regional and global content providers into the country, and thus translating to more patronage for our data centers” he explained. Multiplier effect: He reiterated that if Nigeria becomes the hub in the region, its multiplier effect would mean submarine cables in the country will sell more capacity, Data Centre in the country will have more patronage from the West Africa region, as major ICT companies within the region will begin to host their information in Nigeria locally, with more interconnection of the service provider.
What this also means in extension is that Banks, Universities and Research Institutions in West Africa would be attracted to host their information in Nigeria because of the shorter physical distance between these countries to Nigeria compared to Europe and the US where they currently host their data. Even so, Over The Top, OTT service providers and global content providers like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft would have their task of network integration made much easier because they thrive at a place where several service providers are interconnected. Meanwhile, the present status according to Rudman, would not take IXPN away from its commitment to providing a core national Internet infrastructure that facilitates Internet operation in Nigeria, and to localizing traffic as well as reducing the routing cost of local Internet.
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