The London Internet Exchange (LINX) have announced that its interconnection hub in Nairobi, Kenya is now live and ready for business.
LINX Nairobi is the new Internet Exchange Point (IXP) for East Africa, located out of three data centre locations across Kenya’s capital.
Nurani Nimpuno, head of global engagement for LINX, comments: “I feel very proud to have led on this exciting new venture for LINX in Kenya and the welcome we have received from local stakeholders has been very supportive. We can learn a lot from the country’s technical advancements, for example their adoption of M-PESA with Safaricom, taking Kenya strides ahead in the way of digital finance innovation compared to other countries. I strongly believe LINX Nairobi can only compliment and continue to grow the ecosystem in Kenya.
“At LINX we depend on our data centre partners, fibre providers, ISPs and content providers, customers, and other partners, and we come together to enable each other. But it is when we work together and complement each other’s strengths that we become successful.”
The LINX Nairobi interconnection hub is a multi-site, interconnected platform accessible from IXAfrica but also from Africa Data Centres NBO1 and iColo NBO1 facilities.
Networks located in any of these facilities can plug into the LINX Nairobi hub and peer their traffic, creating a secure and redundant digital environment for them to manage their network more effectively. Peering allows networks to improve the control of their network traffic and the route it takes. It’s often more cost effective than other methods of traffic management and improves network latency.
In addition to the data centre stakeholders in Kenya, LINX are working with a number of technical partners, including Nokia, Smartoptics and Flexoptics.