Hopes of affordable internet services and chances of developing local content on the internet have been hobbled by the reluctance of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and other telecommunications service providers to connect to Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can now reveal.
Initial cost of connecting to the IXPN standing at about N500, 000 and huge cost of infrastructure required for the handshake are some of the reasons operators have shunned the exchange.
The operators prefer connecting directly to their hubs outside the country and this comes with a price.
For instance, an email originating from say Ikeja to somebody in Victoria Island would have to go to London or outside the country where the operator’s hub is located and back to Nigeria.
It also has national security implications because as the mail passes through different equipment it could be intercepted and read.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that to stem the tide Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) had in July 31, 2009 handed directive to all ISPs and other telecommunications services providers offering internet services to connect to the local exchange.
Regrettably, more than 10 months after the expiration of the directive, internet service providers are yet to route their traffic through the IXPN.
Internet Exchange Point is a physical network infrastructure operated by a single entity whose purpose is to facilitate the exchange of Internet traffic between ISPs and it entails a minimum of three ISPs connected to each other.
IXPN provides a centralized location for the exchange of traffic, close to both the originators and recipients of traffic and content.
It would be recalled that the Federal Government had in 2007 established the IXPN with a view to ensuring that all local internet traffic will not have to leave the country to be re-routed via hubs belonging to overseas carriers.
It was the single most economically-empowering decision by the government to secure Nigeria’s future as an independent and viable centre of local content and online community.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek gathered that IXPN has many benefits including reduced costs for ISP while enabling them manage traffic more efficiently.
It also improves quality of service by reducing the transmission time, number of routers, and distance traffic must travel.
IXPN reduces transport costs and network latency and ensures faster access to local content because local traffic is exchanged locally, rather than through one or more third party networks including international links.
This exchange of traffic between networks at an IXP is known as ‘peering’.
As at today only about 30 percent of the over 70 functional internet service providers in Nigeria are connected to the exchange.
There are over 300 licensed ISPs and 12 voice telecom operators in the country.
Some operators that are willing to connect to the IXPN are urging the NCC to provide some palliatives to cushion enormous cost.
Others that have completed arrangement for interconnection with the exchange are being delayed due to the planned relocation of the IXPN to a more spacious location.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek recalled that Olusegun Obasanjo, former president played a crucial role to the actualization of IXPN in the hope that it will help “foster local markets and enable digital inclusion” in Nigeria and the region.
Though efforts to have an Internet exchange point began many years ago, it took the presidential strong will of Obasanjo’s government in November 2005 to ensure that Nigeria got its own IXP.
Immediately, following Obasanjo’s directive, an IXP setup committee was constituted to work with the various structures that was in place, as well as adding as appropriate.
The committee members included the late Ndukwe Kalu (then Internet Service Providers of Nigeria), Ike Nnamani (Medallion Communications), Tosin Oni (InterConnect Nigeria), Femi Adelamo (Emperion W.A), O.T Abiodun (NITEL), Abubakar Yakubu (NCC) and Chris Agha (NCC), including Sam Adeleke of Digitek Teevee Ltd. as the consultant to NCC on the IXPN setup.
In 2006, the board of the NCC approved a proposal to partly fund the setting-up of IXPs, with collaboration between NCC and ISPAN.
The IXPN is now operating from NECOM house, Lagos as its main location; with sub-locations at Victoria Island, Ikeja, Ibadan, Port Harcourt, Abuja, Enugu, Kano & Maiduguri.