10th African Peering and Interconnection Forum to Be Held in Mauritius

In collaboration with Rogers Capital, The Internet Society and African IXP Association (AFIX) have announced that they will holding  the 10th annual Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) in Port Louis, Mauritius starting Tuesday, August 20th  through Thursday, August 22nd , 2019.

AfPIF is an annual event that serves as a platform to develop the African Internet, bringing key infrastructure, service, and content providers together in order to improve network interconnection, lower the cost of connectivity, and increase the number of users in the region. Launched 2010, the event was created to address the realisation that most of Africa’s Internet traffic is sourced or exchanged outside the continent.

Over 400 participants attended last year’s AfPIF in Cape Town, South Africa including providers of international, regional, and sub-regional transport, transit, and content as well as more than 20 Internet Exchange Point (IXP) operators.

“Removing barriers to content availability and distribution will have significant impacts on the Internet in Africa. It will help to make existing international content more accessible. AfPIF is the only event in Africa focused on building the Internet by building relationships. It plays a key role in bringing together different parties to increase local traffic exchange across the continent,” explained Michuki Mwangi, Senior Development Manager for Africa at the Internet Society.

Kyle Spencer, Co-Coordinator of the African IXP Association corroborated this when he said; “Our target is to localise 80% of Africa’s Internet traffic by 2020, and I believe we’re well on our way. Packet Clearing House reports that Africa currently sees the highest growth of domestic bandwidth production in the world, registering a 92% increase from 410 Gbps to 786 Gbps within the last 12 months — and our internal industry bench marking data corroborates this. It’s an exciting time for Africa, and we look forward to building on this momentum in Mauritius.”

Founded by Internet pioneers, the Internet Society (ISOC) is a non-profit organisation dedicated to ensuring the open development, evolution and use of the Internet. Working through a global community of chapters and members, the Internet Society collaborates with a broad range of groups to promote the technologies that keep the Internet safe and secure, and advocates for policies that enable universal access. The Internet Society is also the organisational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

Also collaborating, the African IXP Association (AFIX)–a group of internet exchange point operators from across Africa, brought together by a shared need to coordinate and exchange knowledge. While Rogers Capital is a FinTech company in Mauritius and is a subsidiary of Rogers Group, one of the largest conglomerate listed on the SEM 10 on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius. Rogers Capital is a leading Mauritian provider of fiduciary, technology and financial services.

How long do you think it would take Africa in removing barriers to content availability and distribution on the Internet in Africa? Let’s know your thoughts in the comment section below.

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