Improved broadband speeds, promotion of key content, healthy competition among carriers and a strategic location has allowed NAP Africa to be one of the fastest growing exchange points.
NAP Africa is a neutral, layer 2 Internet Exchange Point, located within Teraco data centre environment and is currently routing 2.5Gbps of traffic on both the Johannesburg and Cape Town IXPs.
“One of the key factors to the success of the exchange was through our efforts to build relationships with global and African thought leaders in the peering industry, including: Andy Davidson (LONAP), Mike Blanche (Google), Michuki Mwangi (ISOC, KIXP) and Shane Chorley (Vox Telecom) and creating a strategic steering committee called the NAP council,” said Michele McCann, NAP Africa Peering Coordinator and Business Development Manager at Teraco Data Environment.
The NAP Council provides valuable insights on topics such as; promoting content penetration in and out of Africa; promoting healthy competition among carriers; improved broadband speeds for African consumers through the promotion of peering exchanges; promotion of a balanced market between new entrants and exiting monopolies through increased open and affordable peering policies and promotion of key educational content in order to reduce cost of delivery to end users.
Many IXPs in Africa have struggled to grow the content and there are sessions at AfPIF, where participants like McCann will share on how to attract more peers and increase content.
“To successfully establish an exchange point, it needs to be located within a neutral data centre which operates according to global standards with an emphasis on high availability of 99.9% or better. Further, the exchange point needs to be driven both commercially and technically for the greater good of the Internet and not only for profit,” McCann added.
NAP Africa has 80 members peering since March 2012.