At AfricaCom 2022, our Chief Editor, Chris Green met with Nurani Nimpuno, Head of Global Engagement of LINX (London Internet Exchange), one of the world’s leading experts in interconnectivity and peering.
Ms. Nimpuno talked about the role of the London Internet Exchange in helping Africa grow with their start in Nairobi. Linx had set up an exchange point in Nairobi to serve the entire local ecosystem in Kenya and furthermore, in all of East Africa. One of their aims was more than the latency and the speed of the connection it was about the cost. She explained that instead of handing off that money to a third party they could keep the money in the continent to facilitate reinvesting locally.
She also shed light on their project in Jeddah which has seen significant organic growth. They had partnered with stc and provided an exchange point which has now become one of the largest hubs in the region. She further talked about their success stories at LINX wherein she went into the growth of their international hubs with the addition of cloud connect and other value-adding interconnection options including how they are one of the few providers of the Microsoft Azure peering service.
When asked about the future of LINX she said,
Africa is one of the markets that are underserved when it comes to exchanging points, Latin America as well. So, if there are markets where we can do good by offering exchange points, that’s something we’re definitely keen to do. So we’re looking at where else we can provide LINX services, in a way that promotes the local ecosystem and grows the local market.
Nurani Nimpuno
Towards the end, she mentioned that another one of their aims is towards accelerating product development. She mentioned that LINX is leading the way in the development of value-added services so essentially with every new development, LINX is trying to make the lives of their customers easier.
