Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of IXPN, Muhammed Rudman, said the activation of Verisign’s RIR Site into IXPN physical infrastructure is a pointer to the company’s mission.
The Central Bank of Nigeria, Huawei Clouds, and five other organisations have joined the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) to host their traffic.
The Chief Executive Officer of IXPN, Muhammed Rudman, who disclosed this, said Orange Telecoms, Proline Technologies, Ciudad Infrastructure Limited, Choice2mobile Technologies Limited, and Nigerian Communication Satellite Limited, are the other organisations that recently joined the exchange. Thereby, increasing the numbers of network operators currently interconnected to over 80, with the attendant benefit of getting direct access to multiple Internet networks with a single connection.
Rudman believed that these present additions are a positive response to years of advocacy by IXPN that organisations operating in Nigeria should host their data in-country rather than in foreign countries. He stressed that when companies host within the country, they stand to benefit from faster access to their content by the end-users, payment in local currency for the hosting service, and ultimately, help grow Nigeria’s digital economy.
“We are delighted to have these seven reputable Network Operators recently join the exchange point. This, for us, is a pointer that the call for Internet domestication by IXPN, some stakeholders, and well-meaning Nigerians is being responded to, positively” Rudman stated.
While calling on other similar organizations to do the same, Rudman in his statement, noted that the recent connections have positively impacted the IXPN traffic, which stood at 220 Gbps from 125 Gbps in 2020.
Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) presently covers eight Points of Presence (PoPs) in Nigeria; four in Lagos and a branch each in Abuja, Port Harcourt, Enugu, and Kano. The Lagos PoPs are all interconnected to each other with high-capacity links and with full redundancy. To promote even growth for local Internet traffic across the country, the Nigeria Communications Commission provided the connectivity between Lagos and the other four branches in the country.
Also, as part of efforts to improve performance, services, and scalability which is critical in today’s evolving Information and Communication (ICT) industry, IXPN last year acquired Switches capable of 25Gbps, 40Gbps, and 100Gbps ports capacity for its entire network in Lagos. The essence of upgrading the switches is to help the company address the current and anticipated needs of its growing customer base.