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NAPAfrica's Andrew Owens on explosive Internet growth under lockdown

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NAPAfrica, the Internet exchange point (IXP) operated by data centre operator Teraco, has seen a 50% spike in peak traffic volumes in the past five months to 1.5Tbit/s, driven by the lockdown and work-from-home measures.
In this episode of the podcast, Teraco technical lead for interconnection and peering Andrew Owens talks to TechCentral editor Duncan McLeod about the history of NAPAfrica and why Teraco decided to build it and allow companies to peer freely using the facilities.
He explains why IXPs like NAPAfrica are important components of Internet plumbing and why NAPAfrica in particular has had a big impact on the efficiency, speed and cost of accessing Internet services in South Africa and the broader sub-Saharan Africa region.
Owens then unpacks the traffic trends that have emerged since the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly how people are using the Internet differently today than they did before the lockdown.
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21 Oct 2020 English South Africa Technology · Business

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