Statement by Mr.Muhammed Rudman, MD/CEO of Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (NIXP) released in Lagos on July 10, 2007.
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Today, the Internet in Africa has been growing steadily over the past several years and is beginning to play a significant role in Africa's development, creating employment, providing opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship, as well as acting as an enabler in the digital delivery of government services, education, radio, and healthcare, among others.
The new possibilities provided by Internet technologies present African countries with an opportunity to leapfrog phases of development and make use of the most recent innovations to establish a strong information society and increase the distribution of wealth among the populace, thereby addressing the poverty that has plagued the continent from time immemorial till date.
Unfortunately, the overall impact of the Internet as an enabler of development in Africa has been severely curtailed by a number of elements. Topping the list is the lack of efficient paths to carry growing local and regional traffic among Internet Service Providers (ISPs) in Africa.
This problem occurs both on a national as well as regional or inter-country scale. For example, when an African Internet user sends a message to a friend in the same city or a nearby country, the data travels first to Europe or the United States before getting back to the African city or nearby country. It has been estimated that this use of international bandwidth for national or regional data costs Africa over US$400 million annually.
The vision of a connected Africa begins with the building blocks of the Internet. At the national level, Internet traffic between ISPs has been optimized in a number of countries with the introduction of Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), which allow ISPs to interconnect and offload correspondent traffic.
Today, Nigeria is one of only 11 of the 53 countries in Africa that have IXPs. However, this marginal IXP connectivity results in an inefficient exchange of African inter-country traffic through hubs located overseas mainly in the US and Europe. This means that Africa is paying overseas carriers to exchange "local" (continental) traffic on its behalf. This is costly and inefficient.
It is in the interest of all countries in Africa to find ways of optimizing Internet traffic through building better and more robust networks to support intra-continental traffic flows. This will create opportunities for private sector investment.
All over the world, IXPs are deployed to leverage on cutting-edge technologies to optimize the information super-highway. In Europe, America and Asia the Internet exchange phenomenon has been around for quite a while, hence, we have the London Internet Exchange, the Amsterdam Internet Exchange, and the Hong Kong Internet Exchange, among others. Coming home to Africa, there are IXPs that have gone live in Egypt and South Africa and even in Kenya.
Following the conclusion of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis , the need for Internet Exchange Point/Gateway for Nigeria became clearer. Accordingly, Former President Olusegun Obasanjo issued a directive to Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) through the Ministry of Communications to urgently establish an Internet Exchange Point (IXP) for Nigeria.
The Federal Government through NCC registered a company by the name Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria Ltd (IXPN) by guarantee to handle the operations of the exchange. IXPN is a Public-Private Partnership where all ISPs and content providers are stakeholders while the company is a neutral, not-for-profit organization.
I would also acknowledge the immense support and encouragement we have received from the NCC under the leadership of its Executive Vice Chairman, Engr. Ernest Ndukwe in realizing the overall vision of promoting efficient delivery of Internet services to complement development in Nigeria.
To drive this innovation in Nigeria, NCC constituted an interim Board of Directors of IXPN comprising of selected individuals from the industry (stakeholders) in order to draw from their experience and expertise.
The board was inaugurated on the 13th May, 2007 at the NCC headquarters in Abuja, Mr. Chima Onyekwere, MD/CEO Linkserve Ltd was appointed the chairman of the board, while my humble self, Mr. Muhammed Rudman was appointed the MD/CEO.
I am happy to inform you today that the Lagos IXP branch is 100% complete with and has some ISPs already connected while the interim Board includes the following members:
Interim Board Members
Name Organisation
1. Mr. Chima Onyekwere Linkserve
2. Mrs. Zubaida M. Rasheed Transcorp
3. Dr. Sylvanus A. Ehikioya NCC
4. Engr Sam Adeleke Digitek Teevee Cunsulting
5. Prof. K.R. Adeboye FUT Minna
6. Mr. Aminu Tijjani Multilinks
7. Mr. Yen Choi Netcom
8. Mr. Chioke Ogugua Celtel
9. Mr. Sunday Folayan Skannet
10. Mr.Akinwale Goodluck MTN
11 Mr. Muhammed Rudman (MD/CEO)
You will recall that Internet transit cost is the major bottleneck for affordable Internet service in Nigeria. That is why NIXP has negotiated a landmark agreement with NITEL to provide SAT-3 transit traffic at the rate of $2,800 per Megabit duplex connection to all NIXP members marking a major reduction from the previous price of $6,300. We are also using this opportunity to invite all the major players in the industry to become transit providers for NIXP if they can provide same or lower rates than that provided by NITEL.
In an effort to lower the cost of internet service delivery in Nigeria, telecom operator, Starcomms, the latest entrant has joined other ISPs at the exchange point making it the first PTO to connect. By peering with other ISPs at the exchange point, it means all local internet traffic will remain local within those ISPs and Starcomms'.
Hitherto, all ISPs within Nigeria were connected at foreign countries which meant that the data of say a JAMB (Joint Admission and Matriculations Board) student within Lagos browsing the JAMB website located within an ISP in Lagos will travels first to Europe or the United States before getting back to the Nigeria.
The scenario is just like going to Ibadan from Lagos via U.K. and U.S.A. It has been estimated that this use of international bandwidth for national data costs Nigeria over US$100 million each year.
The management of Starcomms must be commended for joining the NIXP which proves their leadership in pioneering development in the ICT industry.
But we will not stop until all Nigerian ISPs, PTOs, telecom operators and content providers and allied providers are connected to the exchange point which will ensure that all local internet traffic remains local in Nigeria. We do not need to pay foreign countries huge sums of money just to communicate within ourselves here in Nigeria
I would like to call on all ICT providers to join the team of the already connected members like Tara Systems, Linkserve, Netcom Africa, Cyberspace, 21 Century, MTS First Wireless and Medallion Communications in catapulting national ICT to the next level.
NIXP reduces transit cost to all our members by keeping local traffic local. That means no need to have traffic to go overseas only to come back. Therefore each domestically-exchanged transaction effectively frees up an equal amount of international bandwidth.
Another benefit is that direct interconnection with peers lowers latency in traffic between peering ISPs. It also ensures high speed, low latency access to sites for end-users, in essence better quality of service to all.
Also, continued success of the Internet depends on increasing bandwidth. That is why the minimum bandwidth capacity for joining NIXP is 10/100 Mbps while 1000 Mbps is available. High bandwidth capacity will provide reliable web-enabled applications, ranging in scope from e-government, e-commerce and multicast services for Government and private sector.
I would also like to note that spam filtering, content filtering and IP tracking (fraud detection) can easily be implemented because all members will have their own ASN and IP address before they can connect to us. To this end NIXP will implement fast track desk for any member requiring ASN and IP from AfriNIC.
Our mission is to provide a reliable exchange in Nigeria. That is why NIX will be implementing IDS (Intrusion Detection Systems) with BGP filter community so that our members can have a safer exchange.
Traffic going overseas means transit charges paid to your upstream ISPs which are not located in Nigeria. By keeping local traffic local, we save foreign exchange for the country and money is saved for the local economy.
The NIXP also ensures cheaper Internet access for all consumers, which in turn provide wider access to the entire populace.
Contact Details
Mr. Muhammed Rudman
Phone: 234 -1-7625118
E-mail: info(a)nixp.net
