By chukwuemeka fred agbata

All serious digitally-driven economies invest heavily in infrastructure and one critical aspect is what is known as an Internet Exchange Point, IXP, which is simply a physical infrastructure that allows the several internet provider, ISP’s and network operators to exchange traffic between their networks.

Nigeria also owns one, that is tasked with facilitating internet operations, localising traffic as well as reducing local internet routing costs.

 I recently had a chat with Mohammed Rudman, CEO, Internet eXchange Point of Nigeria and he was able to break down some of the complex, behind the scene activities that make the internet tick.

Mohammed stated that what happens when you visit a website from your device is that you put a name into the browser of your computer and there is a resolver that actually talks to what is called a DNS server that does the translation. “It is a series of referrals that happens from your computer to the service provider’s computers, to the entire internet computers, to get you an answer”, he stressed.

Mohammed further explained that behind the website you are browsing, there is what is called an IP Address. “Each computer in the world and each website in the world, has what is called an IP Address. It is a number that is hidden”, he stated. “Nigerian networks are eyeball content heavy”, he opined.

He explained that there are two kinds of networks on the internet. The first one is what he calls the ‘eyeball network’. These are people trying to browse or networks that have people behind them, such as MTN, Airtel, etc.  The second is content networks that have the content, such as Google, yahoo, Facebook, etc.  “Nigerian networks are eyeball content heavy”, he opined.

On why it is important to keep the traffic search on the internet local, Mohammed gave 5 good reasons why this should be so. The first benefit  is that Nigeria will reduce the capital flight incurred in hosting in other countries, which is in US Dollars. The second benefit is that, the reduction is capital flight will also lead to reduction in latency and cost reduction as well as higher quality of service.

The third advantage of hosting locally to keep the traffic local, is that it further strengthens the cyber security of the country, as passing of data through international borders is now sidetracked. The fourth advantage, according to Mohammed, is business continuity. He stated that we depend on submarine cables for hosting internationally. If a natural disaster occurs, such as a Tsunami, and damages these submarine cables, this will definitely mean a disruption in the local individual and business communication flow.

The fifth benefit of hosting the internet traffic search locally, is that we will gain and develop the technical skills to manage data centers to host ourselves instead of depending on other countries that host. This also, inadvertently, means the creation of more jobs for Nigerian.

Mohammed is of the view that we are ready to keep the traffic locally by hosting here in Nigeria, as the data centers currently have adequate infrastructure on ground to support the weight. “Most of them  also have the potentials to expand their facilities”, he observed.

Mohammed also explained what an Internet Exchange Point is and does. “An Internet Exchange Point, is a physical infrastructure, where all internet providers, educational institutions and any other organisations that are IP-centric that they usually, physically get connected to, so that they can exchange their traffic locally”, he stressed. He also said that a country can have as many exchange points as possible, but it has to be in a community where not less than 3 service providers are available, because they must exchange traffic.

On the fact that Nigeria is not playing big in content and what we can do to rectify this, Mohammed is of the view that we need to improve on our advocacy.

He stated that we cannot be content consumers alone, but we must also be content creators too.

He stated that the content that Nigerians generate are hosted outside Nigeria and in his opinion, government and other stakeholders should evolve policies that will change the ‘center of gravity of content on the internet’ from South Africa to Nigeria.