West Africa’s largest data centre provider, MDXI and global IXP platform provider, Asteroid have partnered to launch a carrier-neutral Internet Exchange Point (IXP) for West Africa. The West African Internet Exchange (WAF-IX), is based on Asteroid’s lightweight design and will be located in MDXI’s Tier III Data Centre, in Lagos, Nigeria, West Africa’s biggest economic hub.

Outlining the three major objectives for WAF-IX as accessibility, lower costs and reduced latency for Internet users in West Africa, Product Manager, MDXI/Peering Coordinator, WAF-IX, Vremudia Oghene-Ruemu stressed that the new Internet Exchange would complement national IXPs, improve regional traffic and ultimately foster the attainment of the digital economy across West Africa. “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. The West African Internet Exchange, hosted within our globally certified Data Centre will significantly improve traffic exchange and localization 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”, he says.

West African Internet Exchange will facilitate improved interconnection, collaboration and peering between players with access to MDXI’s Tier III data centre, and will enable an ecosystem that allows customers connect to multiple networks, cloud and content providers. Using the lean and efficient Asteroid IXP platform, WAF-IX will enable service providers operate more efficiently with the delivery of enhanced end-to-end network performance, while reducing overall IP Transit costs.  

Asteroid CEO, Remco van Mook, said: “West Africa’s digital economy is on the rise, but huge gaps still exist in in-country interconnection. 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 host, MDXI is West Africa’s largest data centre provider offering colocation, interconnection and cloud services and is the region’s most connected data centre, with proven competence to interconnect OTTs and major network, content and financial services providers.