Free and public peering facility NAPAfrica, a part of vendor neutral data centre provider Teraco Data Environments, has announced open access for peering members to international content providers
Lex van Wyk, managing director of Teraco Data Environments said that NAPAfrica was swiftly developing into a content hub for Africa.
“The addition of these content giants to NAPAfrica means that local users can access international content from a local node. This will reduce transit costs and download speeds for African Internet users,” remarked van Wyk.
The announcement came shortly after NAPAfrica reached one gbps in multilateral peering traffic in five months after its launch.
NAPAfrica said that the exchange would be a multi-lateral peering facility in Africa, focusing not only on local Internet Service Providers (ISPs), but also on large content providers, carriers and enterprise, both local and international.
“We have seen a dramatic spike in growth with the addition of this content,” Van Wyk added.
“There have been predictions for some time now that a ‘tidal wave’ of video-driven data will flood the Internet, and ISP’s and IXP’s have been gearing-up to accommodate the influx.
“As a result, decreasing the absolute cost of Internet transit is one of the principle drivers for pursuing an Internet peering strategy and is very necessary in Africa.”
NAPAfrica has claimed that through open peering, users of ISPs present at NAPAfrica, will notice an increase in speed to access applications such as Facebook, YouTube, Google and Microsoft Updates.
