Since the beginning of 2018, the Internet Society and Facebook have organized the following workshops:
Zanzibar IXP Workshop
The Zanzibar peering operation started in May 2018 with three peers (Zanlink, ComNet and Halotel). Followed by others, there are 9 peers at the moment. More information can be found here.
The Ministry of Infrastructure, Communication and Transportation (MoICT), in partnership with the Zanzibar Internet Exchange Point (ZIXP) and the Internet Society, with support from Facebook, organized an IXP Best Practice workshop on 23 July 2018, and a technical workshop on Internet Routing Technologies and Internet Exchange Point (IXP) Interconnection from 24– 27 July 2018. Both workshops were held at the Ocean View Resort in Zanzibar. The IXP Best practice workshop had 32 participants while the Technical workshop received 20 participants. The event was officiated by the Director in the Ministry of Infrastructure, Communication and Transportation, Dr. Mzee Suleiman Mndewa. The participants also visited the Zanzibar IXP facility.
Morocco Interconnection Forum and Technical Workshop
There is an ongoing effort to establish an IXP in the business capital of Morocco, Casablanca. The effort is being championed by NplusOne Data Centers and MTDS in collaboration with other stakeholders in Morocco. The initiative led to the first Morocco Interconnection Forum which was held on 20 September 2018 at the Anfa Place Casablanca. The event attracted over 40 stakeholders representing policy makers, regulators, operators, ISPs, banks, data center operators, amongst others. The Internet Society and Packet Clearing House were among the international participants and speakers at the inaugural event. At the end of the event, the organizers expressed interest to hold future peering forum events in Morocco to create awareness on the importance of peering.
During the same week the Internet Society with the support of Facebook and in partnership with NplusOne Data Centers held a 4-day technical hands-on routing training for 11 participants from local operators and academia. At the end of the event there was agreement that:
- There was a need to establish a local Network Operators Group (NOG) to build a local technical community to develop the Internet ecosystem in Morocco
- There was need to follow up with another Peering Forum event to maintain the stakeholder outreach momentum towards establishing the proposed Casablanca IXP (CASIX)
Nigeria Network Operators Group (NgNOG) Peering Track
NgNOG has for the past 12 editions provided technical capacity building for stakeholders in Nigerian Higher Education. In 2018, NgNOG extended its outreach to include players in telecommunications sector. This resulted in the organizing of the first Peering Track at NgNOG in collaboration with the Internet Exchange Points of Nigeria (IXPN), Internet Society and Facebook. The 2-day session had over 30 participants from local and international networks that are presently peering at IXPN locations in Nigeria.
At the end of the peering track there were fellowship awards on the offing for the winner (the lead engineer involved) to attend a key Africa Internet meetings (AIS Kampala or AfPIF 2019) for either updating their IPv6 routing objects on the AfriNIC RIR or successfully implementing MANRS actions within the set timeframe.
Zimbabwe IXP Workshop
The Internet Society in partnership with the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ) with the support of Facebook, Af-IX, RINEX and INX-ZA facilitated 2-day IXP and Peering workshop in Harare, Zimbabwe. The event received over 50 participants from local operators. At the end of the event, a task-force consisting of 11 members was created to find a community based approach for interconnecting the two peering locations in Harare.
Image credit: © Kyle Spencer
African Union IXP Workshop
The Internet Society with support from Facebook facilitated an IXP workshop organized by the African Union during the PIDA Week event in Victoria Falls from 27-28 November 2018. There were 20 IXPs from Africa in attendance where issues relating IXP growth and sustainability were discussed.
Burkina Faso IXP (BFIX) Peering Roadshow and Technical Training
January 14 – 18, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
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Togo IXP (TGIX) Peering Roadshow and Technical Training
February 11 – 15, Lome, Togo
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Lesotho, Peering Roadshow and Technical Training
25-29 March 2019, Maseru, Lesotho
BDIX, Peering Roadshow and Technical Training
20-24 May 2019, Bujumbura, Burundi
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Mauritius Peering Roadshow
11 July 2019, Mauritius
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Guinea IXP Workshop
8 – 12 July 2019, Conakry, Guinea
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Chad IXP workshop
2 – 5 August 2019, Ndjamena, Chad
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AfPIF-10 (AfPIF 2019)
20 – 22 August 2019, Balaclava, Mauritius
Image credit: © Nyani Quarmyne/ Panos Pictures
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Benin IX Peering Roadshow
7 – 11 October 2019, Cotonou, Benin
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Lubumbashi IXP Workshop and LUBIX Launch
21 – 25 October, Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
On Friday 25 October 2019, the IXP community in Africa welcomed their 46th member, the Lubumbashi IXP code name LUBIX, and the 2nd IXP in Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The formal launch was officiated by representatives from the Katanga Provincial Government, the telecommunications regulator (ARTPC) as well as the President of ISPA-DRC and their members. The event was also attended by a team from Facebook (our IXP partnership project partner) and the ARB was represented by Michuki Mwangi. At launch, three networks were connected at LUBIX namely Airtel, Microcom and Orioncom. A Facebook cache was also installed and will be available to connected networks shortly. Other networks are expected to join in the coming days. The formal launch event was preceded by a 4.5-day routing hands-on training for local ISP engineers. The Internet Society also provided donation for servers, switches and optical transceivers for the new IXP setup.
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