Stakeholders Call For Local Data Centres To Boost Digital Economy

Stakeholders in the internet ecosystem have called for a concerted effort to host content locally, which serves as a driver for economic growth.

Stakeholders, who made the call at a workshop, organised by Internet eXchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) and Medallion Data centres, in Abuja, stressed that, hosting content locally, will provide additional revenue opportunities to local Internet Service Providers and data centres which in turn creates more jobs and serves as a driver for economic growth.

The chief executive officer of IXPN, Mr. Muhammed Rudman said Nigeria cannot continue to pay money to foreign hosting companies as it constitutes capital flight, puts more strain on Nigeria’s foreign earnings, slows the growth of local data centres and delays the development of new ones.

Warning that hosting data overseas has several implications on the economy, end users, Nigeria’s security, legal and businesses, Rudman argued that if the content is hosted locally in any of the data centres, it has a direct and indirect impact on the economy in terms of job creation and revenue for the government.

Speaking on the essence of the workshop, the CEO averred that the workshop and subsequent engagement was centred around the impact of Internet eXchange Point of Nigeria and Medallion Data Centers on the ICT industry, and ultimately, the benefits of peering and interconnection to prospective organisations.

“The duo of Internet eXchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), a membership-based organisation, which provides a platform where networks interconnect directly within Nigeria and Medallion Datacenters, West Africa’s most connected facilities, engaged various stakeholders, mostly in the Internet ecosystem on Internet peering and interconnectivity,” he disclosed.

Explaining what peering and interconnectivity between various stakeholders will bring to the industry, Rudman, noted that peering will enhance Internet connections for citizens and organisations alike, which will at the end of the day help the economy to thrive.

“Peering and interconnectivity through internet exchanges address the challenges of traffic by ensuring the shortest possible route is used to reach a given destination. It keeps traffic as local as possible, which improves performance and enables faster connections between networks, facilitating high-speed data transfer, lower latency, increased bandwidth and improved fault tolerance,” he said at the gathering that attracted over 100 stakeholders, mostly network engineers and administrators.

In the same vein, the chief executive officer of Medallion Datacenters, Engr. Ikechukwu Nnamani asserted that the strong growth of Africa’s digital economy will drive demand for more data centres on the continent, while calling for more data centres to be able to accommodate the surge.

“While he calls for local hosting of content and data, there is also the need to build more data centres to be able to accommodate the strong growth of Africa’s digital economy,” he said.

Nnamani said, Medallion already boasts of a data centres, which is touted as the largest Peering and Connectivity hub in West Africa with over 70 Carriers and ISPs present and accommodating 68 per cent of Nigeria Internet Exchange’s traffic.

But going by the strong growth of Africa’s digital economy, it is building another data centre with 232 racks that has access to the initial data centre and providers via campus connections, he further disclosed.