Peak Internet traffic at the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) increased from 300 Gbps to 500 Gbps this year on its infrastructure, with plans to reach one terabyte by the end of 2024.
IXPN Chief Executive Officer Muhammad Rudman revealed this in Lagos and credited the achievement to the addition of multiple local and international content providers exchanging traffic locally via the exchange point.
According to Rudman, IXPN has more than 120 linked members, including all mobile network operators in Nigeria, Internet service providers (ISPs), and other network operators in the nation, in addition to some of the major global content networks including Amazon, Netflix, Microsoft, Google, and Meta.
We are happy to announce that IXPN has exceeded the threshold for peak local Internet traffic at 500 Gbps. This is attributable to the installation of reliable infrastructure in each of our locations around the nation, which has had little to no outage during the course of our years of operation, according to a statement from IXPN.
In early 2020, the port charge at IXPN was $0.428 per month per Mbps (for a 1 Gbps port), while the cost of international IP transit is $27.45 per Mbps per month (also for 1 Gbps capacity), according to a report by the Internet Society (ISOC) about IXPN and Kenyan IXP.
According to the analysis, accessing traffic or content at IXPN is therefore approximately $27 less expensive per Mbps per month than it would be to do so elsewhere. Considering the volume of traffic that will be exchanged in 2020, this translates into annual savings of more than $40 million.
According to Rudman, the savings have led to a number of ISPs growing their operations and opening doors for new ISPs to enter the market, which has increased the amount of Internet traffic in the area overall.
According to the head of IXPN, the domestication of Internet traffic in Nigeria means that using local content ensures that traffic does not pass via foreign upstream providers and instead stays in Nigeria. Hence, aiding in the preservation of Forex, particularly in the aftermath of the recent FX crisis that has strained the majority of organizations.
He continued, “We think that content hosting locally is the best course of action because it is the only way to increase capacity and technical competence within Nigeria and consequently create more jobs for the populace.”
