Angola’s largest IXP welcomes i3D.net as its first remote peering customer
Angonix, Angola’s largest Internet Exchange Point (IXP), has welcomed i3D.net as its first remote peering customer. i3D.net is a managed hosting provider specialising in online gaming that hosts millions of players for game publishers on the Microsoft Xbox and Sony PlayStation networks. i3D.net joins 17 other companies at Angonix, Africa’s third largest IXP.
According to Darwin Da Costa, project manager at Angonix, “With the Remote Peering services from Angola Cables, online gamers in Angola will enjoy an improved gaming experience with a much-reduced latency. It is the first phase as we look forward to eventually having i3D.net establish a local infrastructure in the country.”
This year, global revenues in the games market, including Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) games that support thousands of players at a time playing over the Internet, will total US$109bn, a growth of 56 per cent over the past five years. Accounting for the majority of the online gaming market, MMOs are expected to have a value of US$27bn by 2025 (The Insight Partners).
Whether on smartphones, PCs or consoles, the growth of the global online gaming market is expected to consistently be above 10 per cent until 2023 with the availability of better gaming infrastructure as one of the primary drivers propelling the growth prospects of this market (Technavio).
i3D.net CEO Stijn Koster adds, “i3D.net provides services to a variety of online video gaming publishers, aggregating a large number of games that can be played on our infrastructure. We are always working to bring content as close to the end user as technically possible and welcome the opportunity to partner with Angola Cables and the Angonix Internet Exchange Point. i3D.net continues to build a stronger presence in Africa as one of the few truly global providers with extensive local presence throughout the African continent.”
With year-on-year revenue growth of more than 25 per cent, The AMEA region (Asia, Middle East and Africa) is a fast-growing region for online gaming. With more than 336 million gamers and an online population of over 585 million, it will see revenues of about US$4bn this year. Only three African countries are in the top-60 countries for online gaming revenues, but as infrastructures continue to improve, these rankings are expected to improve. Currently, South Africa is ranked number one on the continent, 55th globally, with revenues of US$120mn this year, followed by Algeria, ranked 57th globally, with revenues of US$103mn and Morocco, ranked 59th globally, and revenues of US$84mn in 2017.
