INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Mobile Technology
Africa’s largest Internet
Exchange Point (IXP) NAPAfrica
reaches traffic milestone
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Asserting its strength as seventh largest
IXP in the world.
T
eraco has announced that Africa’s
largest Internet Exchange Point
(IXP) NAPAfrica has reached a
landmark with one terabit per second
(Tbps) of peak traffic. According to Andrew
Owens, Manager of Interconnection
and Peering at Teraco, this is not only a
significant milestone for the exchange, but
also for the continent.
“The NAPAfrica members, including global
content and cloud providers, over 250
telecommunication providers, managed
service providers and a growing enterprise
base, are the driving force behind achieving
this momentous goal,” said Owens.
Launched in 2012, NAPAfrica first recorded
traffic of 532Mbps. Eight years later the
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exchange has reached 1Tbps, showing
an impressive 1884 X growth. The exchange
started with five members and today has
in excess of 440 unique ASNs connected
from across the world, including 26
African countries.
“In a relatively short space of time
NAPAfrica has become a significant
contributor to the Internet ecosystem
within Africa. This was one of our ultimate
goals, to be of value to our members and
to sustainably develop the African Internet
ecosystem,” said Owens.
NAPAfrica’s recent growth has been driven
by the uptake in networks and enterprises
accessing key content and cloud. In
addition to the general use of the Internet
across Africa visiting popular sites such as
Netflix, Facebook, YouTube and other key
Internet applications.
Of significance, is the interest shown by
South Africa’s neighbouring countries, all
looking to connect via NAPAfrica.
Owens said: “Telcos in countries as far
afield as Angola, Togo and the Democratic
Republic of Congo have joined the exchange.
NAPAfrica has become the Internet hub for
Sub-Saharan Africa.
“More recently, the exchange has also seen
a growing trend of enterprises and banks
joining NAPAfrica to leverage its efficient
and cost-effective access to content and
cloud operators.” n
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