An Internet Exchange Point (IXP) is a physical infrastructure through which Internet service providers (ISPs) exchange Internet traffic between their networks.

More Internet exchange points are coming online in Africa by the month. Most recently, an IXP launched in Kinshasa, DR Congo, and another recently became active in Maseru, Lesotho. IXPs reduce the portion of an ISP’s traffic which must be delivered via their upstream transit providers, thereby reducing the average per-bit delivery cost of their service. The benefits are great, and the amount of traffic flowing through many major African IXPs has increased by 20-50% in the past 12 months.

Wonderfully, the folks at the European Internet Exchange Association have gathered links to African IXPs with live traffic graphs. Daily trends are always enjoyable to see, but more interesting are average and peak speeds, along with visualizations of yearly growth (where available). Comparing cities, we find the most data to be moving through Tunis (14,000 MB/s daily), followed by Johannesburg (3,000 Mb/s), Cape Town (740 Mb/s), Cairo (560 Mb/s), then Nairobi (520 Mb/s).

Tunisia (TunIXP)

• Daily: Average 8.4 Gb/s, Max 14.6 Gb/s
• Year: ~25% annual traffic growth

Cape Town, South Africa (CINX)

• Daily: Average 742 Mb/s, Max 1.4 Gb/s

 

Johannesburg, South Africa (JINX)

• Monthly: Average 2.8 Gb/s, Peak 6.4 Gb/s
• Yearly: Has grown from 2 Gb/s daily average to 3 Gb/s
• Total of 8.1 PB transferred in 12 months
• The 5-year graph speaks for itself

 

Nairobi, Kenya (KIXP)

• Monthly: Average 520 Mb/s, Max 1 Gb/s
• Yearly: daily peak growth from 500 Mb/s to 600 Mb/s
• 78% annual growth rate from Feb. 2004 – Feb. 2005 (still only 1.5 Mb/s pre-international fibre)

 

Cairo, Egypt (CAIX)

• Monthly: Average 556 Mb/s, Max 1.3 Gb/s
• Yearly: Traffic grew from 150 Mb/s to 200 Mb/s from Nov 2011 to May 2012

 

Kampala, Uganda (UIXP)

• In March 2012, the IXP was averaging 1,390 kb/s output (10.7 Mb/s peak)

 

Maseru, Lesotho (LIXP)

• Screenshot of traffic from mid-October, 2012
• Average inbound: 3.46 Mb/s, maximum 20.33 Mb/s

 

Kinshasa, DR Congo (KINIX)

• Screenshot of traffic from the launch on November 16, 2012
• Max 3.43 kb/s (testing)