AfPIF-3 Highlights Regional Interconnection – Addressing Africa’s Internet Transit Deficit
[Washington, D.C. and Geneva, Switzerland] – The third African Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF-3), organized by the Internet Society, will be held 22-24 August 2012 in Johannesburg, South Africa. A multistakeholder forum, AfPIF aims to foster national and cross-border interconnection opportunities where key stakeholders, including infrastructure and service providers, Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), regulators, and policy makers can share experiences, hear from experts, and advance peering and interconnection arrangements.
According to recent research, nearly all peering and interconnection agreements are forged at regional and global peering forums around the world. A unique regional forum, AfPIF facilitates discussions on infrastructure challenges, including terrestrial capacity issues, national and regional IXP development, local content development, and international peering. AfPIF provides a venue for productive technical discussions and business relationships that can be forged to augment Internet infrastructure and services in Africa.
Keynotes and panel sessions will cover topics that address Africa’s Internet transit deficit, including Peering Negotiations and Strategies for Operators, Peering and Transit Economics, Landlocked Countries and Cross-border Regulatory Reality, Exploring the Content Business in Africa, and Attracting Global Content via Regional IXPs.
“AfPIF has established itself as a strategic event for conducting business in Africa,” said Dawit Bekele, Internet Society Regional Bureau Director for Africa. “This year, we’ve added even more opportunities for business connections to be made and agreements to be negotiated. This conference offers an impressive array of speakers and educational programs, along with networking events to provide attendees with a venue where they have access to a wide range of regional interconnection opportunities.”
The Internet Society would like to recognize and thank all of the AfPIF-3 sponsors, including Platinum sponsors Liquid Telecom and SEACOM, and Connectivity sponsor Dark Fibre Africa.
Ben Roberts, CTO of Liquid Telecom
“Liquid Telecom is proud to sponsor AfPIF in Johannesburg. The event has come to Southern Africa at the right time. With high speed cross border fibre connections (like Liquid Telecom's fibre project) linking South Africa to its neighbouring countries, the visions discussed at these AfPIF events are becoming a reality.”
Mark Simpson, CEO of SEACOM
“With SEACOM's commitment to building the African Internet, we feel very strongly about the values that the AfPIF events represent. Bringing the operational community together to collectively work toward improving the Internet experience in Africa through peering, AfPIF embodies the very principles that SEACOM hold dear to its heart, and we are proud to be associated with, as well as contribute to, the success of this meeting.”
Gustav Smit, CEO of Dark Fibre Africa (DFA)
”As South African’s leading open access dark fibre infrastructure provider, DFA is privileged to be sponsoring the fibre infrastructure for the event. We are excited to showcase the capabilities and speed of fibre. DFA has already laid in excess of 6 200 kilometres of infrastructure across South Africa and is open to all licensed players on equal terms. Our expenditure plan is in excess of R3.5-billion. Any service provider, licensed to do so by ICASA, may rent fibres from DFA for their own transmission and backbone infrastructure purposes.”
The full list of AfPIF-3 sponsors, along with the programme and information about the speakers and panelists can be found at http://www.internetsociety.org/afpif-2012/overview.