The Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) has partnered with the Nigerian ICT Forum of Partnership Institutions Ltd towards enabling inter-network connections between Higher Education Institutions in Nigeria and reducing their present cost of internet bandwidth.
The collaboration, consummated through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), also seeks to establish the Research and Education Network (REN) clusters.
Muhammed Rudman, managing director of the IXPN noted that REN would serve as a vehicle for the interconnection of all the Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) via ICT in order to promote content development and sharing amongst the member institutions.
Dr. Aminu Ibrahim, convenor, Nigerian ICT Forum said that this is in line with the Forum’s mission which focuses on developing internal capacity for HEIs and cultivating a favourable policy environment that aids development.
Additionally, Nigerian ICT Forum, he said, seeks to utilize, sustain and advance ICT networks, services and shared resources that are owned by the HEIs themselves.
This, he said, includes aggregation of their bandwidth, thus driving the formation of a National Research and Education Network (NREN) to the letter.
Rudman said the MoU vested IXPN with the responsibility of providing a national core infrastructure that facilitates internet operations in Nigeria, as well as localizing traffic and reducing local routing cost.
He outlined some of the advantages of the collaboration to include the formation of clusters within the next two years in at least six geo-political zones in the country; promote content development in Nigerian Higher Education Institutions; provide lower cost of bandwidth for Higher Education Institutions; conduct training and campaign awareness on the need for Research and Education Network (RENs); and mobilize support and resources towards achieving the above goals.
Rudman explained that some of the benefits of the collaboration is to synergise our efforts towards building sustainable clusters of RENs across the country.
“The collaboration will go a long way in promoting content development and sharing, thus accelerating the development of the educational sector as well as boosting the economy at large.”