AMS-IX (Amsterdam Internet Exchange), and TESPOK have decided by mutual agreement to close the East Africa Exchange project. Since 2013, both parties have worked together to implement and support the creation of an Internet Exchange Point located in Mombasa, Kenya at the SEACOM Cable Landing Station. However, since the exchange point went live in mid 2014 it has proved difficult to attract parties to participate in the exchange.
To date there have been only four parties who have connected to the platform, with only one international party namely Google and three Kenya based parties. This has led to the decision to close the East Africa Exchange Point as of June 1st.
This doesn’t mean that the development of the Internet infrastructure in East Africa has reached a standstill. There is currently a project underway supported by the African Union to create an East Africa Exchange Point supported by seven countries. AMS-IX believes that this initiative is the best for the African market, especially given that it will be owned and driven entirely by African based parties enabling the community to demonstrate that it is ready and capable to take the next steps in independently developing it’s own Internet infrastructure.
AMS-IX will be able to reuse the equipment, which has been deployed in Kenya for other purposes in order to ensure that there is no loss of investment.
AMS-IX will continue to support the development of the Internet infrastructure in Africa via initiatives such as the African Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF), sharing their knowledge and experience, and the provisioning of equipment to developing Internet Exchanges.
Bay Area Expansion
At the same time, AMS-IX has announced its Bay Area Expansion with colocation provider Telx. AMS-IX USA Inc., the U.S. subsidiary of AMS-IX has partnered with Telx to open a new Bay Area Point of Presence (PoP) within Telx’s SFR1 data center in San Francisco.
The partnership would further enable AMS-IX Bay Area and Telx to provide reliable, fast, and cost-effective peering opportunities to connected parties on the AMS-IX platform, including customers that are located in other data center facilities.
“The large group of potential and existing AMS-IX USA customers housed within Telx’s SFR1 facility, combined with the spacious, state-of-the-art design of the colocation space, make it the ideal location to expand the AMS-IX Bay Area platform and grow our community,” said Job Witteman, Chief Executive Officer at AMS-IX. “Furthermore, Telx is a proven partner with more than a decade of experience in the US colocation and interconnection market, with whom we are greatly pleased to be extending our relationship.”
AMS-IX Bay Area provides a physical platform – deployed within three data center facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area – where parties can meet to exchange Internet-related traffic with one another. The exchange builds on the neutral and distributed formula of AMS-IX Amsterdam, which interconnects more than 700 unique IP networks from around the globe to exchange peak Internet traffic of close to 4 Tb/s. In addition to AMS-IX Bay Area, AMS-IX USA Inc. operates AMS-IX New York and AMS-IX Chicago.
