Experts have agreed that the recent consummation of completing internet exchange points between Nigeria and Ghana will among other things reduce cost, improve traffic and save about N20m monthly for Nigerian operators.
Earlier this month, Ghana Internet Exchange Point has connected to Nigerian’s Internet Exchange Point (IXPN) to route traffic locally within the region.
The process is on a vice-versa and partnership basis and it is designed to present a win-win situation for both West African economies.
However, another vista emerging with the new feat is the chances of Nigeria becoming the regional hub for Internet content in the region and the continent based on the fact that both countries will have their costs reduced with surge on latency on the route.
Another advantage is that henceforth, Internet traffic destined for the two countries will now remain local, meaning that instead of the traffic coming from Ghana to Nigeria, which first goes to Europe or the Americas before returning to Africa, will come straight to the region.
This way, analysts say, there will be some cost saving, improvement in service delivery, and safer surfing in both countries.
In an interview, a leading ICT expert who pleaded anonymity averred that “With the internet exchange deal, any of the economies that want to drive internet hub in Africa only needs to invest more in its networks and introduce more flexible policies on the side of the government to deepen private sector investments”.
“Such a deal, if Nigeria can internalize it, this is time to create contents, especially local that can serve the international market, and enable it attract foreign investors. This is important because as it is now, the IXPN is now the second largest in Africa, and the regional IXP for the West African region, a status allocated to it by the African Union,” the industry player noted.
Business Hilights recalls that an IXP is a physical infrastructure through, which Internet Service Providers (ISPs), Content Delivery Networks (CDNs), and other IP centric organisations exchange Internet traffic between their networks. The primary purpose of an IXP is to allow networks to interconnect with one another directly via the exchange rather than through one or more third-party networks.
On the other hand, the advantages of the direct interconnection are numerous, but the primary reasons are cost savings, reduce foreign exchange transaction, reduced latency, high bandwidth availability, security, improving routing efficiency and providing fault tolerance to operators.
