Nigeria has confirmed her attendance to this year’s Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF), an annual event that serves as a platform to develop the African Internet.
Confirming the country’s attendance to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek, Mohammed Rudman, managing director, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) said that the forum is an opportunity for internet exchange point operators in Africa to work together for the development of the sector in Africa
The Internet Society and African IXP Association (AFIX) have announced that they will hold the 10th annual Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) in Port Louis, Mauritius from 20-22 August, 2019 in collaboration with the local host, Rogers Capital.
AfPIF is an annual event that serves as a platform to develop the African Internet. It brings key infrastructure, service, and content providers together in order to improve network interconnection, lower the cost of connectivity, and increase the number of users in the region.
First held in 2010, the event was created to address the realization that most of Africa’s Internet traffic is sourced or exchanged outside the continent.
Over 400 participants attended last year’s AfPIF in Cape Town, South Africa including providers of international, regional, and sub-regional transport, transit, and content as well as more than 20 Internet Exchange Point (IXP) operators. This year’s attendance is expected to exceed that.“Removing barriers to content availability and distribution will have significant impacts on the Internet in Africa.
It will help to make existing international content more accessible,” explained Michuki Mwangi, Senior Development Manager for Africa at the Internet Society. “AfPIF is the only event in Africa focused on building the Internet by building relationships. It plays a key role in bringing together different parties to increase local traffic exchange across the continent,” he added.
Kyle Spencer, Co-Coordinator of the African IXP Association said “our target is to localize 80% of Africa’s Internet traffic by 2020, and I believe we’re well on our way.
Packet Clearing House reports that Africa currently sees the highest growth of domestic bandwidth production in the world, registering a 92% increase from 410 Gbps to 786 Gbps within the last 12 months — and our internal industry benchmarking data corroborates this. It’s an exciting time for Africa, and we look forward to building on this momentum in Mauritius.”
