Thursday, 28th March 2024
To guardian.ng
Search

Global internet content provider, distribution network eye Nigeria

By Ugo Onwuaso
15 September 2017   |   2:38 am
Internet content in Nigeria is set to receive a boost as one of the world biggest internet content providers and the biggest content distribution network have concluded arrangement to launch their services in the country, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek has learnt.

Mohammed Rudman, managing director of IXPN and the chairman, IPv6 Council Nigeria.PHOTOS:itpulse.com

Internet content in Nigeria is set to receive a boost as one of the world biggest internet content providers and the biggest content distribution network have concluded arrangement to launch their services in the country, Nigeria CommunicationsWeek has learnt.

Government and stakeholders have been making efforts to encourage hosting of local content locally in order to make local internet traffic local. Recently, National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) mandated MDAs to relocate their website servers to the country to boost local internet traffic.

Mohammed Rudman, managing director, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), confirmed the coming into the country of this content provider and distribution network to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek but did not disclose their names as the agreement with them is yet to be consummated.

“I can assure you that by the end of this year these big internet content provider and distribution network will be in the country. When they are fully connected to the exchange point, it means that for Nigerians to access their content will be easier as they don’t need to go through international links again. More so, local content providers in the country can also be assisted by the content distribution network to distribute such content outside of the country and make money from it,” he said.

He also urged local content providers who host their servers outside of the country to consider relocating them in other to boost local traffic and save money for the country.

“Media and entertainment contents are generated locally but hosted abroad. The day we experience cut to undersea cable infrastructure that links Nigeria to the outside world, we won’t have access to those content which are generated here and are meant for Nigerians,” he added.

Corroborating Rudman, Mark Tinka, head of engineering at Seacom, a submarine cable operator with a network of submarine and terrestrial high-speed fibre-optic cable that serves the east and west coasts of Africa, said that 80 percent of Africa’s Internet traffic comes out of Europe.

“Most African Internet users tend to get much more of their content from Europe than from the US. Seacom’s dream is to one day be able to keep the majority of traffic on the continent, thereby reducing the amount of money Africa spends on transporting traffic to Europe. That will also help to drive more Internet penetration in Africa because of a reduction in cost of business,” Tinka noted.

Nigeria CommunicationsWeek investigations revealed that there has been an improvement in the hosting of contents in the country with the advent of commercial data centre operators such MainOne, Rack centre and Medallion that have also achieved Tier 111 certification.

In this article

0 Comments