Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria is positioning as a regional Internet Exchange hub for West Africa in terms of infrastructure and traffic. Muhammed Rudman, chief executive officer, IXPN, stated this at its 2026 members engagement forum held in Lagos. He noted some of the major milestone IXPN achieved last year to include one terabit of traffic recorded in March 2025.

“At that time, we became the 63rd internet exchange point in the world. Among all the exchanges in Europe and America and in the entire world, we become the number 63 in the world. To achieve that one terabit of traffic. Again, we were able to achieve two terabits of traffic within seven, eight months of the year.

“We achieve this by ensuring that we push for members to upgrade, those that were on 1 Gig to 10 Gig, those on 10 Gig to 100 Gig. We had a strategic infrastructure upgrade across our networks, put 400 Gig enable switches, increase our fiber links to all the data centers and we onboarded 17 new members last year. All the trainings and the operational excellence ensured that our network is up and running 24/7,” he said.

Industry Impact

The impact of that one terabit traffic is data sovereignty. “We were able to domesticate. Based on the survey we conducted, 54% of our members said that they are exchanging 50% of their traffic and above locally, which is really, significant one.

“We are also setting up a benchmark for other African IXPs. I can assure you that in all the community driven internet exchange points in Africa, we are the number one. There’s a community driven internet exchange point in South Africa that was established 10 years before IXPN. There is one in Kenya that was established 6 years before IXPN, but we are way ahead of them when it comes to internet traffic.

“We are also promoting intra African connectivity. As at today, we have customers from Niger, from, Burkina Faso, trying to reach to Nigeria. Recently, we onboarded a very large company in Ivory Coast, to connect to Nigeria.

“Gradually, Nigeria is tilting towards becoming the regional hub for West Africa, where you see Internet Service Providers coming to achieve that. And in terms of the traffic, in 2015 we were at four Gigabits per second. It moves to 21 in 2017 and 52 gigabits per second.

“But by the year 2023 it has reached 540 gigabits. By 2024 we have reached 900 gigabits. But by the end of 2025 we have achieved the two terabits of traffic”.

Network Infrastructure Development

Some of the technical feet IXPN achieved includes, deployment of sFlow; which is a peer to peer traffic analysis. “We’re able to see what members are exchanging between themselves and between the data centers, not the actual content or information, but rather the volume of traffic, and also between our data centers. And based on this, we’re able to do the upgrades.

“We did a multiple link upgrades from 300 Gigabits last year from Digital Realty to Equinix. It was 300 Gig as at the end of 2024, and by 2025, we’ve increased that to 500 gigabits per second. Digital Realty to Rack Center, it was 200 Gigabits per second. We also upgraded that to 500 Gigabits per second.

Open Access Data Centre to Equinix. We’ve upgraded from 20 Gigabits per second to 200 Gigabits per second. We always monitor the ports, and based on that, we increase immediately we reach the threshold of 80%.

“We did an upgrade on the IXP manager. This allows each member to have a login portal to see the traffic they are exchanging and other details, the port as well as to do their own configuration,” he added.

Technical Project Milestones

Microsoft connected cache. “We deployed Microsoft content cache and that has been deployed in Lagos. It was 25 Gigabits per second as of 2024 by 2025 we had to upgrade the infrastructure to 75 Gigabits per second servers, that will be able to accommodate all the Microsoft updates they are doing, exports, download and among others.

“This is part of the content that Microsoft is not providing locally, but we got those servers deployed, and our intention is by next year to see how we can replicate this across the country. Last year, we also deployed the same server in Abuja so that the Abuja people and the Kano people can reach that content without coming back to Lagos.

The Google Global Cache (GGC); “We are hosting all these at IXPN. We also upgraded from 53 Gigabits per second servers in 2024 to 153 Gigabits per second. And this is a huge traffic of YouTube. And as we speak, we are also working towards upgrading those servers,” he explained.

Strategic Partnerships

“We signed an MoU last year between us and an IXP in Senegal, when we went for West African peering forum. A lot of African ISPs are looking to us to see how we can guide them and support them.

“For example, internet exchange point from Gabon, internet exchange point from Rwanda and ISPs in Africa are looking at us as a model to copy, and we tend to support them. We also had a strategic partnership with CIRA, the Canada Internet Registry Association, which is similar to Nira, the Nigerian Internet Registration Association, to have their secondary authoritative servers into Nigeria as an anycast instance. And when they are hosting that, they are hosting other top-level domains as well, like alibaba.info.org.ca, are also hosted with us.

“Since they launched last year, we have seen a traffic of over 1000 DNS responses per second. Presently, there are 13 global root servers in the world, and those 13 servers are the ones that translate your IP address into a domain name. Any website you browse, you put a domain name, it translates into an IP address and its chain of referrals, Nigeria has.ng as a country, called Top Level Domain”.

Earlier in his welcome address, Charles Nmeregini, Business Development Manager, IXPN, said that the members engagement forum is more than an annual country. “Today, we pause to celebrate the milestone, the milestone that we have reached together, the milestone that have bolstered our local traffic exchange, reduce latency and significantly lower the cost of Internet access across the nations and beyond.

“However, today is equally about the horizon. It is a strategic moment as we unveil our 2026 service road map, a forward-looking rubbing designed to deepen interconnection, enhance service delivery and unlock new value across the ecosystem. In an era defined by rapid technological shift, standing still is not an option.

“This forum will spotlight exclusive, strategic business opportunities, new avenues for growth, enhanced pairing capabilities and innovative service model tailored to give your organization a competitive edge. We are not just exchanging data, we are exchanging ideas that will drive the next wave of Nigeria digital economy,” he added.

Paradigm Initiative (PIN) has strongly condemned Gabon’s ongoing suspension of major social media platforms—Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube—ordered by the Haute Autorité de la Communication (HAAC) on February 17, 2026.

Social Media

NetBlocks and independent monitors confirm widespread disruptions persisting as of February 20, driving users to VPNs amid unstable nationwide connectivity.

PIN described the blanket shutdown as a grave breach of digital rights, including freedom of expression and access to information, silencing discourse during anti-government protests and a labour strike.

The digital rights group highlighted the absence of specific violation evidence, legal basis clarity, or restoration timeline from HAAC, rendering the measure disproportionate.

Gabon’s actions contravene Article 9 of its Constitution, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 19), and African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Article 9), failing international legality, necessity, and proportionality tests.

NetBlocks estimates a $2.96 million (FCFA 1.78 billion) Total Cost Impact over two days from WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube outages, crippling entrepreneurs, small businesses, freelancers, journalists, and civil society reliant on these platforms.

The shutdown disrupts commerce, digital payments, customer engagement, and livelihoods—especially youth and informal sectors—in a nation with prior digital curbs during unrest.

PIN urged immediate full platform restoration, HAAC transparency on legal grounds and order details, and ISP notices detailing government directives.

ISPs and tech firms must uphold UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, ensuring transparency on connectivity orders and avoiding complicity in violations.

This pattern undermines Gabon’s transparency, civic participation, and democratic governance commitments.

Banks and telecommunications operators in Nigeria have ended a four-year dispute over nearly N300bn owed for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data services (USSD), with the debt now fully cleared, according to Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON).

Gbenga Adebayo, chairman, announced the resolution on Thursday during an official visit to Idris Olorunnimbe, chairman, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).

He credited the intervention of the NCC, led by Dr Aminu Maida, executive vice chairman of the commission, with bringing the long-standing dispute to a close.

“When Dr Maida assumed office, he inherited significant industry challenges,” Adebayo said.

“One of the most difficult was the USSD debt crisis, a debt burden that grew over four years to nearly N300bn. It had become a systemic risk to our sector and the digital financial ecosystem.

Through firm leadership, structured engagement, and decisive coordination, Dr Maida and his team resolved this issue.

Today, there is no outstanding USSD debt. The ecosystem has fully migrated to end-user billing. What was once a looming crisis has been converted into a sustainable framework.”

The clearing of the debt ends years of accusations and counter-accusations between banks and telecom operators, which had threatened the stability of digital financial services in the country.

Adebayo praised the NCC’s leadership for steering the telecom sector through one of its most delicate periods, noting other interventions, including last year’s approval of a 50 per cent USSD tariff.

He described the resolution of the debt crisis as a milestone for the telecom and digital finance ecosystem, ensuring sustainability and predictability for operators and service providers.

Nigeria’s telco and bank billing for USSD services transitioned to the end-user billing model in mid-2025, moving charges from bank accounts to customers’ mobile airtime, which is deducted directly by telecom operators.

This shift resolved the long-standing dispute in which banks owed operators up to N300bn in unpaid USSD fees.

The transition arose from years of tension between telecom operators, including MTN and Airtel, and banks over USSD revenue sharing, with debts peaking at N250–300bn by 2024.

The NCC, in collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria, developed the EUB framework to standardise billing, enhance transparency, and support financial inclusion for unbanked users who rely heavily on USSD codes.

Under the EUB system, charges are now deducted directly from mobile airtime at N6.98 per session lasting up to 120 seconds, with user consent prompts issued before each deduction. Banks no longer bill for USSD services; telcos handle them exclusively, with regulatory safeguards preventing double-billing. Users can opt in or out of the service, and banks are required to notify customers in advance of any USSD session charges.

Migration to the EUB model began between June 3 and 18, 2025, following partial debt repayments amounting to N171bn. By February 19, 2026, banks had fully cleared the remaining debt, solidifying the EUB rollout.

The model improves user control through immediate airtime deductions and session notifications, similar to voice and SMS billing. While some critics have expressed concern over potential burdens on low-income users, the transition strengthens telecom revenue sustainability and contributes to the stability of Nigeria’s digital financial ecosystem.

Credit: Punch