The Internet Society in partnership with the Internet eXchange Point in Nigeria (IXPN) have just concluded an “Internet Routing Technologies and IXP interconnection” workshop. Held from 16-20 November, 2015 was aim to increase local technical capacity and use of the Internet exchange points (IXPs) in Nigeria.
The five-day workshop is follow-on to the Internet Society’s access, connectivity and infrastructure work to support the growth of IXPs across Africa.
The ISOC’s objectives for Africa are to work with local Internet partners to realize Africa’s potential to deliver locally 80% of the continents Internet content. In partnership with local stakeholders, we support capacity building efforts and extend technical assistance to facilitate IXP development, domestic and cross-border interconnection in Africa. As countries establish and utilize their IXPs, both domestic and cross-border Internet traffic will be routed locally, creating downward pressure on costs, increasing quality of service, and as a result stimulating economic growth and distribution of local Internet content.
More than 24 network engineers from the telecommunications, academics and Internet Service Providers attended the workshop, which was designed to teach the technical skills needed to maximize their benefits from domestic and cross-border interconnections at IXPs.
The objective is to create the requisite local technical expertise to support interconnections at the IXP. In this regard, the training incorporated hands-on training for the participants to familiarize themselves with interconnection technologies and techniques that increase the efficiency of network interconnections and traffic exchanged at the IXP.
Established in 2006, the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) works towards providing a national core infrastructure that facilitates Internet operations in Nigeria and localizing traffic as well as reducing local Internet routing cost.
With its principled vision of becoming the leading IXP in Africa by the year 2015, the IXPN also looks forward to becoming a one-stop company to service and content provider across Nigeria.
