Anchoring the African Internet Ecosystem Anchoring the African Internet Ecosystem: Lessons from Kenya and Nigeria’s Internet Exchange Point Growth By Michael Kende June 2020 CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 internetsociety.org 1 Anchoring the African Internet Ecosystem Table of contents 3 Executive summary 6 Background: A vision for Africa 8 Introduction: How to get there from here 13 Success stories: Kenya and Nigeria today 18 Results that stand the test of time 20 Change factors: Replicable steps toward measurable outcomes 27 Market gaps 29 Recommendations 33 Conclusions 34 Annex A: Kenya Internet Exchange Point 35 Annex B: Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria 36 Annex C: Acknowledgments 37 Annex D: Glossary of terms 38 Annex E: List of figures and tables CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 internetsociety.org 2 Anchoring the African Internet Ecosystem Executive summary In 2010, the Internet Society’s team in Africa set an The rapid pace of Internet ecosystem ambitious goal that 80% of African Internet traffic development in both Kenya and Nigeria since would be locally accessible by 2020. 2012 underscores the critical role that IXPs Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) are key to realizing and the accompanying infrastructure play in this goal in that they enable local traffic exchange and the establishment of strong and sustainable access to content. To document this role, in 2012, the Internet ecosystems. Internet Society commissioned a study to identify and quantify the significant benefits of two leading African This development produces significant day-to-day IXPs at the time: KIXP in Kenya and IXPN in Nigeria. value—the present COVID-19 crisis magnifies one such The Internet Society is pleased to publish this update benefit in the smooth accommodation of sudden of the original study. In it, we highlight the significant increases of traffic due to the unprecedented increase advances made in both countries since 2012 and in reliance on the Internet since social distancing and provide specific recommendations for all countries lockdowns began. seeking to strengthen their Internet ecosystem and Internet communities. Figure 1. Stages of Internet Ecosystem Development Localized trac 30% 70% 80% IXP IXP IXP Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Local ISPs Local content Regional ISPs International content CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 internetsociety.org 3 Anchoring the African Internet Ecosystem © Nyani Quarmyne In 2012, in both Kenya and Nigeria, approximately 30% Nigeria, IXPN grew from carrying just 300 Megabits of each country’s traffic was localized. The Internet per second (Mbps) to peak traffic of 125 Gbps in 2020, Society refers to this as Stage 1 Internet ecosystem and the cost savings increased forty times to USD 40 development, at the cusp of moving into Stage 2 million per year. (Figure 1). Each country possessed a strong base Getting to this point meant following a systematic for growth, including an existing IXP that was well- path of stakeholder relationship building and managed and trusted by local stakeholders. Both infrastructure development. The IXPs transformed into countries had static international content available via multisite and multicity IXPs with at least one node a Google Global Cache, but no other locally available in a carrier-neutral data center, while maintaining content. However, each had the necessary foundation their roles in developing and sustaining trust and of trust and collaboration and the corresponding collaboration among their members. Each IXP Internet infrastructure to grow as a hub. also dropped mandatory peering requirements to Today, both countries have reached Stage 2 of encourage new members to join and make selective development, with nearly 70% of traffic localized— peering agreements. As a result, all of the large and they are poised to move to Stage 3. The growth international content providers added at least one of the IXPs in each country was exponential, as were edge cache in the country, and many also added a the cost savings from exchanging traffic locally rather point of presence (PoP). The respective governments than using expensive international transit. In Kenya, also played a role by developing the Internet sectors KIXP grew from carrying a peak traffic of 1 Gigabit per and adopting data-protection policies, thereby second (Gbps) in 2012 to 19 Gbps in 2020, with cost reinforcing an environment of trust and welcoming savings quadrupling to USD six million per year. In further local-content hosting. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 internetsociety.org 4 Anchoring the African Internet Ecosystem Looking ahead Progressing into Stage 3 of development and • Domestic backbone infrastructure must also achieving the ITE program’s goal of 80% of African extend beyond the main landing point for Internet traffic being locally accessed will require submarine cables and main population center a number of recommended actions, which will into other population centers, to further lower benefit the individual stakeholders as well as the the cost of exchanging traffic and accessing broader ecosystem. content locally. • Awareness of the benefits of local content • Finally, an environment of trust and collaboration hosting and peering at the IXP among a broad is key to the successful growth of any technology range of stakeholders must be raised, which infrastructure. Stakeholders must communicate can be achieved via targeted capacity building and connect as equals, working together toward and information exchange, led by, or with the common stated goals and outcomes. participation of the IXPs. The Internet Society offers this history of • In particular, local content developers who positive steps in Kenya and Nigeria, as well currently host their content outside the country, as these recommended actions (page 29), should host it inside the country to benefit from lower latency and thereby also increase as a blueprint for other African countries local traffic. to develop and strengthen their Internet ecosystems. Together, as countries began to • In addition, smaller Internet service providers localize increasing amounts of content, the (ISPs) should connect to their local IXPs in order 80/20 goal of the Internet Society and African to widely peer with other members and thereby Internet community will be realized. increase the efficiency of their interconnections. • Aggregation of demand for backbone capacity and local content hosting can help lower costs for smaller ISPs and local content developers respectively, to help enable them to connect to their local IXPs. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 internetsociety.org 5 Anchoring the African Internet Ecosystem Background: A vision for Africa In 2010, the Internet Society’s team in Africa launched the organization’s Interconnection and Traffic Exchange Program1 with the goal of “80/20 by 2020,” in other words, that 80% of African Internet traffic would be locally accessible by 2020. IXPs are integral to meeting this goal by both localizing traffic exchange between ISPs in a given market and by helping to attract content providers to provide more-efficient content delivery. It soon became clear, however, that the presence of IXPs alone is not sufficient to reach the goal of localizing 80% of African Internet traffic. Meeting a goal of such magnitude also requires that countries have strong enabling environments, and develop collaboration © Nyani Quarmyne and trust among their Internet organizations and the people working for those organizations. This kind of international content, such as YouTube videos; other trust is fostered via community mobilization, capacity content, including locally developed content, was still building, and training. hosted outside the African continent. In 2012, in order to both increase the incentives for To address the issue of local hosting of content, the developing and strengthening IXPs across Africa and Internet Society followed the Kenya/Nigeria study encourage more documentation about the positive with two reports on Rwanda: an assessment of the impact of IXPs, the Internet Society commissioned a economic benefits of locally hosting content, and study to identify the benefits of two leading African a case study on the effects of returning Rwandan IXPs: the Kenya Internet Exchange Point (KIXP) and websites and hosting them “at home” in Rwanda3,4 the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN)2. The Each underscored an issue replicated across much study was groundbreaking in that it was the first to of sub-Saharan Africa: local developers realized quantify the economic benefits of an IXP. And while savings by hosting content and services in Europe the benefits were significant at the time, they also or the United States, which imposed on ISPs were limited by the very small amount of locally significantly higher costs for delivering the content hosted content in sub-Saharan Africa. Kenya and back to Rwanda. Both reports included strong Nigeria each had one Google Global Cache of static recommendations for increasing local content hosting. 1. Interconnection and Traffic Exchange (ITE) Program Brochure, https://www.internetsociety.org/resources/doc/2015/interconnection- and-traffic-exchange-ite-program-brochure/ 2. Michael Kende and Charles Hurpy, “Assessment of the Impact of Internet Exchange Points – Empirical Study of Kenya and Nigeria,” Report for the Internet Society, April 2012, https://www.internetsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Assessment-of-the-impact-of- Internet-Exchange-Points-–-empirical-study-of-Kenya-and-Nigeria.pdf 3. Michael Kende and Karen Rose, “Promoting Local Content Hosting to