NAPAfrica reaches a new peak - 15Gbps

Johannesburg, South Africa

NAPAfrica's Internet exchange traffic has reached a record-breaking peak of 15Gbps, making it the largest Internet Exchange Point (IXP) in Africa. NAPAfrica is housed within Teraco’s carrier and vendor neutral data centre facilities in sub-Saharan Africa.

The growth of this African IXP has been nothing short of phenomenal: it was launched in March 2012 and by December 2013 traffic was peaking at 5Gbps. In a little over two years, NAPAfrica has outperformed other leading IXPs by achieving double-digit growth. This rapid adoption by the market proves that peering exchanges are a much needed facility in the African Internet ecosystem.

Peering in Africa not only makes the Internet more affordable, but IXPs play a key role in advancing the development of the Internet ecosystem. IXPs such as NAPAfrica help to deliver a lower cost and superior usage experience for the consumer, which in turn drives demand for the industry as a whole.

Peering is not new - the practice of ISPs, network and content providers exchanging traffic directly, has been in existence for many years. This type of interconnection and exchange encourages the local routing of domestic or regional traffic and in doing so, reduces costs and improves performance. 

In reaching the 15Gbps mark, NAPAfrica has just proven yet again that the IXP (or peering) model works and makes a positive contribution to the Internet economy of Africa.

The role of the IXP in Africa will continue to grow in importance as the Internet increasingly globalises and interconnection between networks, content providers and users becomes even more critical. Consumer demand for services with increased bandwidth requirements will continue to surge (e.g. VOD etc.) with lower tolerance levels for latency.

The the growth of IXPs such as NAPAfrica mirrors that of more developed markets.

The growth of NAPAfrica is due to its impressive community, NAPAfrica has 140 members across its three Internet Exchange Points including many of the large global content providers.

Internationally IXPs are known for the value they bring in terms of the development of the Internet ecosystem. The understanding and acceptance of this concept has been slow to develop in Africa. Until recently Africa has been lagging, mostly due of a lack of understanding of the role of the IXP and what benefits it can provide. As a case in point: NAPAfrica is significant proof that Africa is not playing catch-up, it has already arrived.

Building the case for Africa: Using open peering to reduce risk and expose the myriad opportunities available in the African market to new entrants

Presentation Synopsis – RIPE 66, 13-17 May 2013

Dublin, Ireland

Africa is the 2^nd largest continent, after Asia, in both size and population. With over 1-billion inhabitants and over 167-million Internet users, it is a significant emerging market.

Various policy and regulatory changes across Africa have seen a leap in the slow progression from Africa’s reliance on satellite connectivity to fibre-optic and even terrestrial wireless networks. As connectivity providers move further into the continent, the challenges that have defined Africa’s sluggish Internet growth are gradually being met. In many instances, cross border and cross continental internet traffic is still routed via the large exchanges in Europe, resulting in delayed delivery and increased costs for African users.

In 2013, African Internet Service Providers are now presented with the ability to join multi-lateral peering exchanges where connection to major international carriers is possible.  This not only allows them to offer African consumers access to high speed connections, but the connection is now at a dramatically reduced cost ultimately opening up connectivity to a much larger market and thus exposing business opportunities to a larger consumer market. 

South Africa as a springboard to Africa…

Telecommunications is one of the fastest growing sectors of the South African economy, driven by rapid growth in mobile telephony and broadband connectivity. With a network that is 99.9% digital and includes the latest in fixed-line, terrestrial fibre, wireless and satellite communication, the country has the most developed telecoms network in Africa.

In 2009, South Africa ranked 34th in the world in terms of fixed-line telephony, with over 4.3-million fixed-line connections. South Africa is one of the fastest growing mobile communications markets in the world. As of 2012, there were over 59-million active sim cards in South Africa, ranking the country 26th in terms of subscriber numbers.

Using the connectivity in Africa

An increase in the number of undersea data cables linking Africa to the rest of the world, as well as market liberalisation, has seen a shake-up in local internet access, with the number of internet users finally breaking through the 15% mark in internet penetration for the continent.

The Seacom submarine fibre-optic cable system linking south and east Africa to global networks via India and Europe was commissioned in July 2009, while the East African Submarine Cable System (EASSy), that links countries along the continent's eastern coast to the rest of the world, started service in August 2010.

WACS and ACE, the west African cable system linking southern and western African countries respectively with Europe were operational in 2012.

Several other cable systems linking Africa to Asia and the southern Americas are already under constructions: BRICS, WASACE, SAexpress and SACS. These cable systems are due to be operational in late 2014. See cable map below:

The challenge…

The challenge for the industry is to continue to remove distance and cost barriers to Internet growth and innovation and identify locally relevant methods for content distribution to be faster and more efficient on the continent. 

The case for local exchanges, specifically those offering free, multi-lateral peering exchanges have never been stronger. As a driver of reducing transit costs and bringing content closer to the end user, a major opportunity exists to improve distribution of connectivity in Africa, drive growth in broadband access and ultimately ‘light-up’ a previously dark continent.

Akamai finds a home in Africa

Teraco, Africa’s provider of carrier and vendor neutral data centres, recently teamed up with local ISP Vox Telecom to bring Akamai’s global content to Africa’s doorstep. 

The Akamai node and infrastructure is being deployed in Teraco and will be connected to the NAPAfrica IXP (internet exchange point) in Johannesburg, South Africa. 

By leveraging the Vox Telecom carrier network, hosting within the most connected data centre on the continent, Akamai will now be able to deliver international content to local consumers at improved speeds.  This marks a trend in global content service providors investing in African shores seeking to provide more cost-efficient internet content and access throughout Africa.   

Providing African internet users with quality international content from a local node, cost effectively and at world-class download speeds, remains a challenge. Video-driven data is flooding the internet adding to consumer demand. With Akamai and other global content providers building local nodes and gearing-up through the NAPAfrica IXP (internet exchange point), however, the internet consumer market can now look forward to reaping the benefits of an improved user experience and faster download speeds.

The Akamai infrastructure will provide access to key content from global providers, as well as access to an SSL certificate node.  

The days of Africa's internet users envying the incredible download speeds of their international peers are numbered. The addition of international content providers to the NAPAfrica IXP (internet exchange point) means that end users will be able to view video content without endless buffering, access international gaming platforms with a substantially quicker response and download software in a fraction of the time we have become accustomed to.