About N30 million ($234 000) is to be spent in the construction of a national internet exchange point in Nigeria. It will facilitate the keeping of local internet traffic within the country’s telecommunications networks.
An exchange otherwise known as an internet exchange point (IXP), is a physical infrastructure that allows different internet service providers (ISPs) to exchange internet traffic between their autonomous networks by means of mutual peering agreements, which allow traffic to be exchanged without cost.
The IXP project was unveiled during the 5th International Nigeria Telecommunications Forum in Abuja in September 2006 and President Olusegun Obasanjo is expected to formally commission the project before the end of September.
Meanwhile, the president of the Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA) of Nigeria, Samuel Adeleke, said that the project, by keeping local internet within the shores of the country, would lead to a reduction of investment operators committing to international bandwidth, especially ISPs and telecommunications operators.
IXPs reduce the portion of an ISPs traffic which must be delivered via their upstream transit providers. Obasanjo had directed the establishment of the point in 2005 during the second phase of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis. It is common knowledge that the absence of IXPs on the African continent is responsible for the high cost of internet access in many African countries.
Adeleke also noted that telecommunications operators would particularly benefit from the project as many of them can carry their local traffic through the internet using voice over internet protocol (IP), and subsequently spend less on transmission of local calls.
Accordingly, he stated that the cost of local calls could come down to about the same level as we have in the international arena.
It costs more for calls to be made within Nigeria than when the call is made to the United States. This is because operators are using voice over internet protocol and with the IXP, we should see the cost of local calls decreasing as well.
Adeleke said that as a national project, the IXP will have seven branches located in Lagos, Ibadan, Enugu, Port-Harcourt, Abuja, Maiduguri and Kano. He said within each of these branches there would also be local connection points, which would all be connected to together.
According to Adeleke about four firms were already connected to the exchange and that live tests of data transmission was currently being carried out, and advising that firms who need the service, especially ISPs need not wait for the commissioning before coming forward to be connected.