The new offering, the West African Internet Exchange (WAF-IX) is built on Asteroid’s lightweight design and will be located in MDXI’s Tier III data centre in Lagos, Nigeria, the biggest economic hub in the region.
“West Africa’s digital economy is on the rise, but huge gaps still exist in in-country interconnection,” said Remco van Mook, CEO of Asteroid. “We believe that the Internet sector across West Africa has incredible potential for growth and will be greatly enabled by the West African Internet Exchange. Together, we can provide a gateway for West African networks to peer with international content providers.”
WAF-IX has three main objectives; accessibility, lower costs and reduced latency for Internet users in West Africa. In addition, the West African Internet Exchange will help to facilitate improved interconnection, collaboration and peering between various players with access to MDXI’s data centre.
“Given the size of its markets and status as home to some of Africa’s biggest economies, West Africa is uniquely positioned to scale up its digital transformation efforts via Internet traffic growth, says Vremudia Oghene-Ruemu, product manager of MDXI and peering coordinator at WAF-IX. “The West African Internet Exchange, hosted within our globally certified Data Centre will significantly improve traffic exchange and localisation within West Africa, with benefits of reduced latency, improved speed and better quality of service to end users. WAF-IX will enable more Africa-focused global and local carriers take advantage of the region’s growing Internet penetration to enable services originating and terminating within the region.”
As a result, WAF-IX will enable an ecosystem that allows customers connect to multiple networks, cloud and content providers. In addition, the Asteroid IXP platform, will allow WAF-IX to enable service providers operate more efficiently with the delivery of enhanced end-to-end network performance, while reducing overall IP Transit costs.
