Business
Building the Caribbean Internet economy – One IXP at a time
Barbados has joined the growing list of Caribbean countries actively pursuing implementation of a vital component in developing the local technology sector: a domestic Internet exchange Point (IXP). The move signals a critical shift as governments and Internet service providers alike take steps to address some critical and costly Internet infrastructure gaps in the Caribbean region.
Internet access across much of the Caribbean is heavily and unnecessarily dependent upon foreign infrastructure – (infrastructure located in the United States).
In several Caribbean territories, local Internet service providers (ISPs) are paying overseas carriers to exchange local traffic between their local networks. This is an unnecessarily costly and inefficient way of handling in-country exchange of Internet traffic. This is equivalent to a Trinidad bus service paying American Airlines to fly passengers from Port-of-Spain to San Fernando (both in Trindad) via Miami!
This dependence imposes significant burdens upon Internet users in the Caribbean. Network access speed is slower than would be the case if networks were interconnected at the local level. The longer the route between networks, the longer a transmission will take; data latency will increase and web sites will be slower to load.
Service prices are higher for providers and consumers who must to pay for the longer, more expensive, international Internet traffic routes. There are also security and privacy risks when data en route from one local network to another has to pass through other countries.
Once Internet traffic leaves one national jurisdiction and enters another, the data is subject to examination by companies and government authorities in those countries.
Local data protection laws will not protect data as it passes through other countries. Any one of these issues would be cause for concern. However, all apply when there is no local facility to keep local Internet traffic local.
