By Olabisi Olaleye

The Executive Vice Chairman of Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC), Prof. Umaru Danbatta, has disclosed that Nigeria loses about N10 billion annually to the hosting of internet content abroad by both public and private organisations in Nigeria.

Danbatta, who disclosed in Lagos Thursday at the Telecom Executive and Regulators Forum organised by the Association of Telecoms Companies of Nigeria  (ATCON), maintained that every internet content hosted locally saves Nigeria foreign exchange, which would have been paid to foreign companies. This, he said, ensures that local data centres flourish, creating more jobs and increasing technical competency for engineers.

He said the hosting of data with Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) saves Nigeria about N2 billion annually.

An Internet exchange point (IX or IXP) is a physical infrastructure through which Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) exchange internet traffic between their networks.

IXPs reduce the portion of an ISP’s traffic, which must be delivered via their upstream transit providers, thereby reducing the average per-bit delivery cost of their service.

Danbatta, who was represented by the Executive Director, Technical Services, Ubale Maska, explained that the IXPs are the focal point of the internet, saying, “they are  critical for the development of the internet in any country, as not only do they reduce the cost of internet traffic by keeping local traffic local, but they enable additional applications, which have a considerable multiplier effect on the economy.

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“Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria is an initiative of the NCC that enables ISPs, telcos, content providers and educational institutions to exchange internet traffic locally within Nigeria.”

Danbatta further added that the NCC provided seed funding that established IXPN as a not-for-profit organisation with the key objective of improving the ICT ecosystem, adding that Nigeria’s IXP is now the second largest IXP in Africa.

He stated that IXPN also reduces the delays associated with routing local traffic internationally, adding that this drop in latency increases speed and better quality of service to end users.

In his remarks, IXPN Managing Director, Muhammed Rudman, hinted that Nigeria had won the bid to become Regional Internet Exchange Point (RIXP) for West Africa region in the African Internet Exchange System project under the African Union Commission.

Rudman said IXPN is in the process of receiving grant from African Union to achieve, among others, provision of power autonomy to Kano exchange point through solar panels and battery bank; interconnect one West African country as a proof of concept for RIXP and to upgrade IXPN core equipment to handle large traffic capacity.

He noted that regional IXPs would promote localisation of traffic in each zone and ensure a more efficient way of exchanging traffic across the country.