Eastern Cape Internet Boost as Nelson Mandela Bay Internet Exchange Point Launches

5 May 2023

In a boost for business and for the growth and development of the Eastern Cape Internet ecosystem, the Nelson Mandela Bay Internet Exchange Point (NMBINX) is the newest addition to INX-ZA’s community-run Internet Exchange Point (IXP) services.

INX-ZA operates SA’s only community-run Internet exchanges in Cape Town (CINX), Durban (DINX), Johannesburg (JINX) – and now Nelson Mandela Bay (NMBINX) – since JINX was launched in 1996 as a project of the country’s Internet Service Providers’ Association (ISPA).

The first node of NMBINX is located in the city of Gqeberha, at the Dimension Data facility in Newton Park, and will be operational from the first week of June 2023.

NMBINX offers network operators in the Eastern Cape region the opportunity to improve their Internet connectivity and performance by connecting to other local networks, content providers and cloud service providers through a single peering point. This will result in faster and more efficient routing of traffic, reduced latency, and improved network resilience. This region has a history of outages due to multiple simultaneous backhaul failures, this development should hopefully lessen the impact of such network disruptions.

From June, if a consumer is making use of an ISP based in Nelson Mandela Bay, instead of the content being backhauled all the way from Johannesburg it can be served locally. The ISP saves on costs and this could be passed on to the consumer.

To promote interconnection in the region, INX-ZA has waived port fees and the co-location facility has waived monthly recurring fees for cross-connects.

INX-ZA’s overarching objective is to keep Internet traffic local to lower costs and improve latencies. The community-run INX-ZA manages SA’s data centre-agnostic and multi-site Internet exchange points for the benefit of Internet consumers as an independent operating division of ISPA. The latter’s members regularly contribute towards the country’s INXes.

Led by INX-ZA, sustained investment in the country’s Internet exchanges have meant that South Africa today is much less reliant on international transit. It is worth noting that INX-ZA’s Johannesburg exchange point has provided continuous, uninterrupted services to users since June 1996.

For more information, please visit www.inx.net.za or www.ispa.org.za.

Finally, for the latest INX-ZA Public Traffic Stats:

https://portal.inx.net.za/statistics/infrastructure