The Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), has partnered with Maindata Nigeria (MDXi), a MainOne subsidiary, to improve national transit traffic by hosting a Point of Presence in the Maindata facility. The partnership will enable a combination of MainOne’s open access submarine cable system and connections with major telecom operators and Internet service providers across West Africa with IXPN’s local IP transit and content delivery networks. This move guarantees member organizations of the Nigerian Internet Exchange with improved peering services, and enables data proliferation for content providers hosted in MainOne’s Data Center through to Nigerian Internet users.
Building on this partnership, MDXi recently announced a new interconnect service offering called OpenConnect. The OpenConnect service offering will enable customers collocated in the data center to directly interconnect with multiple networks and content providers both within the facility and via remote MainOne POPs to improve performance, reduce latency and cost in an open access, carrier neutral manner.
Speaking during the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, Chief Executive Officer of the IXPN, Muhammed Rudman highlighted efforts of the Exchange to deepen local content via partnerships focused on the creation and hosting of content in-country. “Our partnership with MainOne provides our members direct and more cost-effective interconnection with their partners, leveraging hosting in MainOne’s Tier III Data Center, and its open-access network with direct interconnection with all the major networks in Nigeria and 8 other countries in West Africa. This will enhance local internet performance, lower costs and minimize traffic bottlenecks for Internet traffic in Nigeria.”
In her comments, MainOne’s Chief Executive Officer, Funke Opeke reiterated the company’s vision for improved connectivity across West Africa: “MainOne is committed to the penetration of high quality and affordable broadband internet services in West Africa, and bringing the IXPN closer to our network through MDXi plays an important role in helping us realize that vision not only for Nigeria, but for all of West Africa. Hosting the Nigerian Internet Exchange in our data center will enable more operators and carriers take advantage of the connections of the IXPN within MainOne’s connected Data Center and enhance Internet traffic originating and terminating on any network in Nigeria to remain in-country”
MDXi’s interconnect service takes advantage of the company’s recent partnership with the Nigerian Internet Exchange, which provides the Exchange with an IPV4 and IPV6 network, and interconnection ports to third-party providers at its Data Center. MDXi is West Africa’s premier, vendor-neutral data center, with direct connection to MainOne’s submarine cable system and interconnection to all other submarine cables and major networks in Nigeria. MDXi is now home to West Africa’s biggest internet exchange (IXPN) and is Africa’s only Tier III facility with PCI DSS, ISO 27001 and 9001 and SAP Infrastructure Services certifications.
