Business
Building the Caribbean Internet economy – One IXP at a time
Fortunately, there is a proven solution: local Internet exchange points (IXPs). With a local IXP, for example, the portion of network traffic that travels from one point in Trinidad, through the United States or other nations, and back to another point in Trinidad can be reduced. This brings four key benefits to Internet users and businesses.
Reducing export of capital
Local IXPs reduce networks’ ongoing operational costs by reducing reliance on costly international data transit. These cost savings will flow to local Internet users, and unnecessary export of capital will be reduced.
A local IXP increases the amount of bandwidth available to local users by providing high-speed domestic links. This mitigates networks’ bandwidth shortages and reduces networks’ incentives to impose bandwidth throttling and usage caps. Local IXPs reduce network latency by favoring shorter and more direct routes.
This improves the performance of services like, video, gaming, data backup and cloud-based applications and creates an incentive for local business to provide these services to their customers. A local IXP reduces the risk of data becoming subject to foreign laws and practices by allowing local Internet traffic to remain in country as much as possible and as often as possible.
Ongoing efforts by the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), the Caribbean Network Operators Group (CaribNOG), Packet Clearing House (PCH), the Internet Society (ISOC) and other regional and international organizations to raise awareness of the role of IXPs, are slowly bearing fruit.
National IXPs are now active in Curaçao, the British Virgin Islands, Grenada, Haiti and St Maarten. Dominica and the Federation of St Kitts and Nevis are close to launching their own exchanges.
Meanwhile, Trinidad & Tobago, St Lucia, Suriname and now, Barbados, have set up working groups to advance the process. This is welcome news for Internet development in the Caribbean. It is also consistent with recent moves in other developing and developed regions to proliferate Internet exchange points.
