All posts by Internet Society

AfPIF-10

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

Port Louis, Mauritius – 7 February, 2019 – The Internet Society and African IXP Association (AFIX) have announced that they will hold the 10th annual Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) in Port Louis, Mauritius from 20-22 August, 2019 in collaboration with the local host, Rogers Capital.

AfPIF is an annual event that serves as a platform to develop the African Internet. It brings 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. First held in 2010, the event was created to address the realization 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. This year’s attendance is expected to exceed that.

“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,” explained Michuki Mwangi, Senior Development Manager for Africa at the Internet Society. “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,” he added.

Kyle Spencer, Co-Coordinator of the African IXP Association said “our target is to localize 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 benchmarking data corroborates this. It’s an exciting time for Africa, and we look forward to building on this momentum in Mauritius.”

“We are pleased to host AFPIF 2019 in Mauritius especially with the special privilege that this year’s event will coincide with the celebration of its 10 years of existence. As a diversified and sophisticated business hub for the region, we believe Mauritius may help open new business perspectives for the AFPIF delegates. We are looking forward to welcoming the delegates in August 2019 and to providing our support for the development of Internet Infrastructure in Africa,” said Dev Hurkoo, Managing Director, Rogers Capital-Technology.

About the Internet Society
Founded by Internet pioneers, the Internet Society (ISOC) is a non-profit organization 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 organizational home of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

About AF-IX
The African IXP Association (AFIX) is a group of Internet exchange point operators from across Africa, brought together by a shared need to coordinate and exchange knowledge. It aims to foster an enabling environment for IXP operators, improve connectivity within the continent, and increase the Internet’s value for all. AFIX was established in 2012, joined the Internet eXchange Federation (IX-F) in 2014, and now organizes the annual African Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF).

About Rogers Capital
Rogers Capital is a well-established 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. Its Technology arm, is a leading Infocom solutions provider in Mauritius & the Indian Ocean region with a multi skilled workforce of 125 ICT Professionals and with an ISO/IEC 27001 certified Data Centre.

Media Contact:
Betel Hailu
Internet Society
hailu@isoc.org

AfPIF2018

AfPIF 2018 Day Three: Cloud Infrastructure, Local Content, and More

The growth of cloud infrastructure in Africa has been credited with the growth of local content in many regions, and it holds the key for Africa’s ability to attract content carriers and distribution networks.

The first panel of day three at the Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) was dedicated to discussing the current scenario of cloud infrastructure and what it will take to grow the sector further, get the market interested, and eventually grow the level of content hosted locally.

South Africa has the most extensive cloud market, compared to other African countries, and it took concerted efforts from the different players, under the ISP Association, for the market to be deregulated and the laws to be put in place. The laws can take time, but industry players agree the laws are vital to investments in the market.

Although the industry may be small in Africa, cybersecurity is key, as businesses are susceptible to cybercrime, just like other global operators. That means the enactment of cyber security laws in the different countries, and continued training and awareness by industry players.

Power and cooling is another vital part, with many countries enjoying monopoly of power distribution. Liquid Telecom said it has had extensive discussions with the power company in South Africa as it seeks to set up carrier-neutral data centers in South Africa, similar to East Africa Data Centers in Kenya. This will be a different company operating the data centers, just like EADC is separate from Liquid in Kenya.

In discussions with the power companies, Liquid challenges them to evaluate the importance of power stability and availability as a determining factor for international companies determining whether to set up data centers in a particular country or not.

Pricing is key for the market, for enterprises to shift from hosting abroad to local the cost must make sense. If the cost is the same when hosting locally, compared to U.S. or European companies, companies will make the right decisions. The pricing also has to be accompanied by stable power and cooling, well-trained engineers and overall security and privacy.

The debate of Over The Top (OTT) services has gained momentum in Africa for the last two years, as disruptive services like WhatsApp, Uber, AirBnB, and Netflix among others have entered the markets.

The debate is on whether these services should be taxed or not, whether they should be licensed like traditional services or not, and whether governments and ICT industry operators should go back to the drawing board and come up with a new way of operating that doesn’t kill the existing market while at the same time promoting innovation.

A study by the Commonwealth Telecommunications Union found that OTT services had led to a rise in bandwidth usage and growth in infrastructure, with operators expanding 3G and 4G coverage to meet the growing demand.

The majority of African governments are grappling with how to handle Internet services, as online advertising revenues continue growing compared to traditional advertising. Most of them are looking for ways to get new tax revenue sources and at the same time grow the economy.

The research was presented at the 5th council of African regulators in Lome, Togo in July this year, and is expected to form the basis of conversations with the government, network operators, OTTs, and the public.

AfPIF 2019 will be in Mauritius, voted the best place for doing business and most competitive economy in Africa by the World Economic Forum’s Annual Global Competitiveness Report 2017-2018.

AfPIF2018

AfPIF 2018 Day Two: Connecting Cape Town to Cairo

Africa’s dream of Cape Town to Cairo fiber connectivity has moved closer, with Liquid Telecom announcing that it has made considerable progress is signing agreements with regulatory authorities and partners within the route.

Liquid Telecom has an ambitious plan of reducing latencies in connectivity between Cape Town and Cairo. Currently, traffic is routed through Europe, with latencies of 209ms, and it will be reduced to 97ms.

In his keynote speech at the Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF), Ben Roberts, Liquid CTO, said that the project will be implemented through existing Liquid infrastructure within different countries, partnership with existing infrastructure providers, and regulators. The project is expected to be done by 2020 and to eventually connect East and West Africa.

Liquid is expecting the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement, signed and ratified recently, to drive city-to-city interconnectivity, as more countries look for ways to trade with each other and eventually exchange Internet traffic. The goal to increase intra-Africa broadband traffic.

Roberts projects the infrastructure currently being set up will be highly used by the youth, who have grown up online – through education, social media, and gaming applications. The Internet of Things is expected to grow; currently most of IoT deployments are in South Africa, but it is expected to grow in areas such as health, agriculture, smart cities, transport, and logistics.

Cloud infrastructure, combined with IoT is expected to drive utilities, water, sewerage, health, agriculture, smart cities, transport, and financial services.

Growth in data centers and cloud infrastructure has been key to growth in content and fall in connectivity costs. Most content carriers and distributors depend on the data center growth to determine whether to enter the market or not.

Michele McCann from Teraco presented about the growth of their data center space, highlighting the factors they consider before deciding whether to enter a market. Teraco currently has more that 350 AS numbers represented at their facilities and they are growing every month.

Teraco started with networks building structured cabling between each other and peering, cloud services were built and as power and cooling became more reliable, content providers and distributors, financial, and enterprise markets set up services. One of the smaller South African banks was able to gain significant market ground as it focused on its online strategy instead of the traditional brick and mortar approach.

What trends will drive data center growth? Moving content closer to users is driving CDNs to move into Africa, accelerated migration to the cloud as companies look to reduce capital expenditure, lower connectivity costs, growth in online services, and availability of peering.

Availability of statistics has improved over the years, with Telegeography presenting its data on Africa’s traffic trends and pricing. This year, Africa’s Internet grew by 45% while in Sub Saharan Africa, it grew by 40%, compared to 72% last year.

Telegeography measures international traffic, so if there was an increase in local traffic, it is not likely to reflect on the Telegeography statistics. The goal of AfPIF is for local traffic to be exchanged locally, however, 82% of capacity from Africa is still going through Europe.

It is projected that as latencies fall, more CDNs will be attracted to Africa and in areas like Latin America. CDNs have ended up investing in four submarine cables, as they seek to lower connectivity costs and reach more users.

Watch the Livestream of AfPIF 2018!

AfPIF2018

AfPIF 2018 Kicks Off

The ninth edition of Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) kicked off today, with more than 400 tech executive in attendance.

This year, the forum was organized and held jointly with iWeek- South Africa ISP Association’s premier tech event. The event is underway at the Cape Town International Convention Center.

This year’s event is dubbed AfPIF@iWeek has attracted tech executives, chief technology officers, peering coordinators and business development managers, Internet service providers and operators, telecommunications policymakers and regulators, content providers, Internet Exchange Point (IXP) operators, infrastructure providers, data center managers, National Research and Education Networks (NRENs), carriers, and transit providers.

The sessions started with an introduction by Nishal Goburdhan, a veteran of AfPIF, who traced the history of AfPIF, from its conception to the community event it is. The community took over the program three years ago, determining the speakers and the conference content.

How can you take advantage of AfPIF? Nishal suggested that the participants use peering personals sessions; this is like speed dating for networks – members give details of their AS numbers, where they peer, peering policy, contact information, and explain why other participants should peer with them. At the end of every session, participants get a chance to introduce themselves.

The meeting tool allows participants to book meetings with other people and there are long breaks in the schedule, meant to facilitate the meetings. There are six half-hour breaks and 90-minute lunch sessions to allow continuation of discussions.

For the last nine years, it has been clear that most peering agreements are done through a handshake and social sessions. The sessions are meant to facilitate these kind of discussions.

How to start an IXP and how to grow an existing one are probably the major questions for Africa’s tech community. Solène Souquet, from Asteroid International, made a presentation on “the big case for a small IXP,” noting that one doesn’t need a big budget to set up an IXP.

The most important part is a vibrant local community, a gigabit infrastructure that is scalable, 20 or 30 customer ports, website, route server, central location with good connectivity options, and a content carrier as among the peers.

Netflix is one of the major global content carriers and has recently established POPs in Africa and is planning to grow. During the peering and transit tutorial, Netflix explained the different consideration in traffic routing. When accessing Netflix, traffic is routed to the closest server, which facilitates faster response time.

One of the major issues that ISPs have with Netflix is blocking of IPs that are found to have flouted the rules, especially using VPNs to access the content. Netflix says that content is geographically licensed and they provide it depending on what the region prefers to watch. In cases of blockage, Netflix encourages ISPs to reach out and resolve the matter with their teams.

The last session was on inter-city traffic latencies, and it shows that the latencies are falling, as the region continues to interconnect more-and-more cities. The study showed that the median latencies are at 250ms.

The study was conducted in collaboration with the University of Cape Town and AFRINIC. It used Ookla and speedcheker to measure the latencies, 723 probes in 100 cities, 43 countries, and 271 servers.

Northern has lowest city-to-city median delay compared to other regions. Kigali was noted to have high latencies but the team couldn’t explain, but promised to continue investigating.

Watch the Livestream of AfPIF 2018!

AfPIF2018

Welcome to AfPIF and iWeek 2018!

A comprehensive view of Africa’s Internet peering and interconnection ecosystem from the region’s top networks and experts, opportunities to strengthen and build new peering relationships with over 300 attendees using an open to all “bilateral meeting” scheduling tool, insightful presentations, studies and reports delivered by a strong lineup of speakers, and a technical village are some of the interesting activities that participants to iWeek/AfPIF 2018 can expect.

The sessions have been spiced up to include a technical village, with vendors offering masterclasses, a super teachers award honoring Africa’s tech teachers, and a beers for peers session, to allow participants to network more.

“This year’s agenda reflects the growing interests from our rapidly evolving regional industry with an increased focus on regional networks, carrier-neutral data centers, cloud services, and regulation in addition to our traditional line-up of quality technical content,” said Kyle Spencer, Co-Coordinator of the African IXP Association.

This year, the Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) joined hands with the South Africa ISP Association to hold sessions during iWeek. This provides extensive training sessions and opportunities for participants.

“Participants will have opportunities to meet with industry leaders to discuss one on one or in groups the various issues around both networking and content in Africa. Bilaterals are always great to discuss one on one about peering,” said Malcom Siegel, Chairperson, ISP Association in South Africa.

In the last eight years, AfPIF has established itself as the place to be for techies, regulators, and businesses engaging in the rapidly-developing Internet ecosystem. For new entrants into Africa, AfPIF has been a good place to meet major players and engage in bilateral negotiations, which have resulted in increased interconnectivity within the region.

“We have a particularly strong line-up of speakers this year including representatives from Africa and beyond, including Liquid Telecom, Teraco, Amazon, Facebook, Cloudflare, Netflix, TeleGeography, Hurricane Electric, Internet Solutions, and Asteroid, among others,” added Spencer, who is also the Executive Director of the Uganda Internet Exchange Point.

Teaching has been a major component and this year it will not be any different; participants can expect to gain more knowledge and take advantage of the wealth of experience among other participants.

“We have a technical village with vendors who will be giving masterclasses; we also have a training program designed with Africa in mind and will give delegates short 45-50 minute sessions on topics relevant to peering and content delivery,” said Siegel.

Regional interconnection is still a major issue; the continent is striving to interconnect more, and Spencer sees an opportunity to discuss the explosive growth seen in South Africa and how it is impacting growth in the rest of the continent.

After the conference, the organizers encourage participants to experience life in Cape Town and South Africa, if possible.

“Cape Town, South Africa is easily one of the world’s most beautiful, entertaining, and affordable tourist destinations; it has a stunning mountainous coastline; an unusually high density of excellent bars and restaurants; and is immediately adjacent to one of the world’s finest wine-growing regions. Our AfPIF social events and gala dinner will reflect this, of course, but I strongly encourage everyone to stay the following weekend in order to experience all that the area has to offer,” concluded Spencer.

Have a great week ahead!!

Watch the Livestream of AfPIF 2018!

Uncategorized

Welcome to the new AfPIF website!

Greetings! Welcome to the new AfPIF website! As part of the redesign of the Internet Society’s new website, we decided to give AfPIF it’s own separate online presence.  We still do have some work to do, including:

  • Migrating the French versions of past sites.
  • Migrating over the “news” blog posts from past years.
  • Setting up the TLS certificate so the site can be reached over HTTPS.
  • Integrating some of the social media accounts and information.

More changes will be on the way! But in the meantime we are pleased to be able to offer you this new way to learn about AfPIF!

Uncategorized

Internet Society Work in Africa

Africa Highlights

Regional Context:

Download: Average price per GB of traffic in Sub-Saharan Africa

Since the year 2000 Africa has been laying the groundwork to become a major player in today’s information age. In the past decade, online access has quadrupled and cell-phone usage has increased tenfold – making it one of the fasting growing regions in the online world.

While improved access to the Internet represents huge potential for Africa’s economic, political and cultural future, these numbers still only represent a fraction of Africa’s population.

Why should the world worry about this digital divide? Many economists think, with the right tools, this could be Africa’s century.

It’s becoming less and less of a well-kept secret that Africa is in the midst of a profound transformation. Since 2004 economic growth has grown steadily at 6%. Internationally the continent is also opening itself up to global and local trade, proving that even when most of the world is in a financial crisis, Africa can remain open for business.

Almost 15 years ago, experts at the Internet Society outlined how the Internet has a lot to offer emerging economies – everything from software and education, to boosting handicrafts and human rights. But without a progressive Internet environment, cyberspace will continue to exacerbate the digital divide between North and South, urban and rural, and English-speaking and non-English-speaking parts of the world.

Increased access to the Internet and the web also means political change. Africa rattled the walls of the online world when citizens of Tunisia and Egypt used the Internet as one of the main tools to challenge tradition and change the rules. We also saw a global outcry when a medium that fundamentally supports opportunity, empowerment, knowledge, growth, and freedom was taken away.

While social media is a fact of life for many of us, Africa was one of the first areas in the world where regular citizens, activists, nongovernmental organizations, and business people demonstrated the freedom of speech these online tools can give. It was, and is, history in the making.

By lending their voice to the online world, Africa will not only help bring its economic growth to a world in the midst of change but also its rich voice to a global tool that has been built for users, by  users.

How We Work:

The Regional Bureau in Africa acts as an advisor to other Internet Society departments on issues affecting our work. Its also provides critical insight on local business, technology and policy issues to the Internet Society and its stakeholders.

The Bureau also work with Chapters to grow individual memberships, support their initiatives and help them advance in their support of the Internet Society’s mission and values. This includes the focus on building trust and providing transparent guidance for Chapters and helping each Chapter develop strong projects.

We Focus On:

Education – Through a number of programmes we help local communities, neighbourhoods, and villages build their skills to access and develop the Internet and the World Wide Web.

Cybersecurity – While improved access to the Internet is a great economic opportunity for Africa, it also means it is becoming increasingly vulnerable to threats such as viruses, hackers, and malicious spam.

Mobile – While Africa is one of the leading countries in terms of mobile Internet – access to the network that supports it (known as the Global System for Mobile Technology, or “GSM”) remains a challenge.

Cost – Africa has some of the highest prices in the world when it comes to online connection. Why? Many of its countries are simply not connected. This means if you lived in Accra, Ghana and wanted to send an e-mail to a friend in Nairobi, Kenya, your message might have to travel to France before it can make its way Kenya. This means higher costs and service that can be slow and unpredictable.

Policy – We work to help make sure public laws at the local, national, regional, and international level are developed to help support the development of an open and user defined Internet.

AfPIF2016

The Internet Society brings African Peering and Interconnection Forum to Tanzania for first time

[Dar es Salaam, Tanzania – 30 March 2016] The Internet Society will bring its annual Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) to Tanzania for the first time. The organisation has partnered with the Tanzania Internet Service Providers Association (TISPA) to hold the seventh annual AfPIF in the country’s capital, Dar es Salaam, 30 August- 1 September, 2016.Serving as a platform to expand Internet infrastructure and services across Africa, the event will bring together key players to address the opportunities in interconnection, peering and traffic exchange on the continent.

The forum seeks to build cross-border interconnection opportunities and facilitate discussions on African Internet infrastructure challenges, including terrestrial capacity, development of national and regional Internet Exchange Points (IXP) and local content.

“Internet connectivity in Africa has increased over the last few years delivering access to close to a third of the population on the continent. Improving interconnection and traffic exchange has become even more important today as an increasing number of Africans rely on the Internet in their daily lives,” explained Dawit Bekele, Regional Director for Africa of the Internet Society.

“Since we first launched this event six years ago, we have seen a notable increase in investments and initiatives that have led to improvements in the extent and quality of national and regional interconnection. This has been possible thanks to the connections people make at AfPIF. The forum has in particular enabled Africans to collaborate and work together towards the development of the Internet infrastructure on the continent,” he added.

“TISPA remains committed to advancing and protecting the interests of its members while promoting the advancement of the Internet sector. We believe by working with AfPIF to host this auspicious event in August will be one leap forward for Tanzania in terms of network optimization” said Vinay Choudary, the chairman of TISPA.

AfPIF has previously been held in Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, Morocco, Senegal and Mozambique. Last year’s event featured 232 participants from 57 countries and an online participation of 978 people in 77 different countries.

The Internet Society aims to advance the African interconnection agenda at AfPIF-2016, in line with the vision to achieve 80% local and 20% international Internet traffic by the year 2020. The event welcomes sponsors as well as past attendees and new participants to join the leading peering and interconnection forum for Africa.

Promising more than just a forum – AfPIF connects Internet service, infrastructure, and content providers, with government regulators and policymakers to provide an opportunity to advance peering and interconnection arrangements and to make a positive contribution to Africa’s Internet resources.

Read last year’s event summary report

Visit AfPIF 2016 websites both in English and French

Read our blog “AfPIF is coming to Tanzania” 

About the Internet Society

The Internet Society, www.internetsociety.org, is the trusted independent source for Internet information and thought leadership from around the world. It is also the organizational home for the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). With its principled vision and substantial technological foundation, the Internet Society promotes open dialogue on Internet policy, technology, and future development among users, companies, governments, and other organizations. Working with its members and Chapters around the world, the Internet Society enables the continued evolution and growth of the Internet for everyone.

Media Contact: Betel Hailu, hailu@isoc.org 

About Tanzania Internet Service Providers Association  (TISPA)

TISPA is an association that is also non profit organization (NGO) whose members are the Internet Service Providers operating in Tanzania and aims to bring together the Internet community to collectively make the Internet accessible to as many people as possible by encouraging the proliferation of Internet services in the sector, and have their effects be as positive as possible to the users and the country in general.

For more information, visit http://tispa.or.tz/

Media contact: Ismail Settenda, ismail@tispa.or.tz

Uncategorized

3 Numbers that explain the digital divide

Written by Michael Kende

Thanks to the growth of the mobile internet, there are now three numbers that are relevant to the global digital divide – 94, 50 and 36. All three are amazing, and underlie a new way to approach the digital divide that focuses on availability, affordability and relevance.

  • 94% of the world’s population can receive a mobile telephone signal, which represents growth that almost no one could have predicted 15 years ago.
  • 50% of the world’s population can receive a mobile internet signal, because a mobile network can be upgraded to offer internet with far less investment than building the original network.
  • 36% of the population has subscribed to the mobile internet, from a standing start just six or seven years ago, thanks to the widespread availability of and access to smartphones with millions of apps.

These numbers mask significant regional variation, of course. In developed Asia Pacific, 99% of the population has a 3G signal, and 109% have subscribed (some people have multiple subscriptions). On the other hand, in sub-Saharan Africa, where 82% of the population has a mobile signal, 35% have a 3G signal, and so far only 11% have subscribed to mobile internet.

The common thread in all regions is that availability of the internet is no longer the limiting factor – mobile internet is always available to more than those who have adopted it, and can grow relatively easily to cover the entire mobile network if needed.

The key question should be why potential users who could access a service have not done so. For instance, in sub-Saharan Africa, why have only a third of those who could access 3G taken advantage of its availability?

The answer has two parts. First, of course, affordability is a key issue: in some countries, broadband still costs 10% or more of average monthly income and is thus out of range for most. Second, though, is relevance. Is there content available in the local language? Is it of interest? Useful? If the answer to these questions is no, then chances are many who could afford internet access will spend their time and money elsewhere.

In many countries, relevance is now the most significant issue. For instance, in a recent survey in Brazil, subjects were asked to give one or more reason why they had not used the internet. Of the respondents, 25% indicated availability as a reason; 26% indicated cost; while 70% indicated it was a “lack of need or interest”.

So what can be done to help regions clear these final barriers and fully embrace the internet and its advantages?

Of course, everyone would benefit from lower costs – not just those who aren’t online today – and governments can help by removing any barriers to connectivity, such as high costs for deploying infrastructure, and high taxes on equipment, devices and services that act to depress demand.

However, at least as importantly, increasing the amount of content in the local language, with relevance to local needs, is critical. Governments can help promote content creation by developing their own mobile services, hosting them locally and promoting capacity-building to support these activities. Governments can also encourage the private creation of content by removing vague or restrictive laws with respect to content and liability.

As we collectively celebrate the amazing numbers already achieved by the mobile internet in closing the digital divide, we should also work hard together to make sure the remaining challenges are met so that existing and new users enjoy a mobile internet that delivers the hope and promise the internet can bring to everyone.

For a broader discussion of these issues, please check out the Internet Society’s Global Internet Report 2015 which delves deeper into mobile’s impact on the digital divide and a host of other issues related to the mobile internet, and the World Economic Forum’s Global Information Technology Report 2015.

Have you read?
How is mobile changing the world economy?
Which countries have more internet connections than people?
How better connectivity can transform Africa’s economies.

AfPIF2015

AfPIF 2015: Where Business in Africa Starts

The sixth African Peering and Interconnection Forum opened today. Sixth!

It’s a conference I’ve seen grow and change over the past six years into somewhat of a landmark event for those in Africa and working with Africa who focus on building the Internet in Africa.

So – while many technical experts, businesses leaders, content creators, and regional experts gather together for a sixth year – it strikes me as a great time really see how this conference – which started as a simple idea – has grown to become a pivotal backbone to the African economy and development.

A faster and cheaper Internet is key to African businesses

There are dozens of reports outlining the Internet’s potential for Africa and, thanks to some recent studies – there’s a clear progression in terms of how to do it.

But what needs to be said about all of this is one thing:

For Africa to profit from the Internet the Internet actually needs to be there, it needs to work, and it needs to work well.

The people who come to AfPIF are the ones who are making that happen.

Building Africa’s Business Backbone: It’s About People

What’s magic about AfPIF – truly magic – is what happens here between people. In comparison to much of the developed world – meeting one another, sharing ideas and building contacts isn’t as simple as it sounds. There are not many African forums where people can meet in an affordable environment. Many conferences are too expensive for most African professionals to attend. Travel isn’t always economically or practically feasible. In many ways working professionals exist in their own world without even knowing what is happening in the country next door.

This is why we started AfPIF:

  • Through fellowships we help key African Internet players overcome some key travel hurdles.
  • By broadcasting AfPIF over LiveStream (link). Anyone can take part from anywhere.
  • By moving the conference around to each of Africa’s regions we’re able to bring the conference TO the people who are trying to get there, and,
  • By keeping it open we remove a lot of the costly entrance fees that can be a barrier to so many.

Why Does It Work? It Wasn’t an Empty Promise

Just like the Internet we’re building – we kept AfPIF open. This means you don’t have to pay anything, you don’t need to know anyone, and you don’t need to wait for a long sought after invite to show up on your desk.

You just need to either be here in person, watch it online, share your ideas, and network. Just be a part of it.

The result is amazing. Imagine a room full of people with this amazing desire to learn – matched with an incredible desire to share. AfPIF’s camaraderie is unmatched.

We told people this was our vision, we delivered, and we kept it that way – after six years.

And, we see the impact. There are more IXPs in Africa, and more local traffic in Africa each year.

What’s the Result: Great Business Outcomes For Africa

In simple terms, “peering” is when Internet service providers (ISPs) connect with each other directly or at a central location (an IXP) to avoid sending traffic through expensive international Internet connections to connect with each other. This means ISPs can provide better performance using fewer resources. And, the rest of us have the potential to have faster and cheaper Internet.

But, when most peering relationships start with a handshake – we need a place to do that.

At AfPIF we gather together technical people, business leaders, and content providers, to build the personal relationships needed to make peering happen. Together, the plan is build, and change the African economy – one relationship at a time.