Muhammed Rudman, chief executive officer of Internet eXchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) has called for a concerted effort to host content locally.
Rudman said during the ICT workshop in Abuja that doing so will provide additional revenue opportunities to local Internet Service Providers and data centers, which creates more jobs and drives economic growth.
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“Nigeria cannot continue to pay money to foreign hosting companies as it constitutes capital flight, puts more strain on Nigeria’s foreign earnings, slows the growth of local data centers, and delays the development of new ones,” he said.
Warning that hosting data overseas has several implications on the economy, end users, Nigeria’s security, legal, and businesses, Rudman argued that if the content is hosted locally in any of the data centres, it has a direct and indirect impact on the economy in terms of job creation and revenue for the government.
The ICT workshop which was centered around the impact of the Internet centered around the impact of IXPN and Medallion data centers on the ICT industry, and the benefits of peering and interconnection to prospective organisations brought key insights to stakeholders present.
Also speaking, Ikechukwu Nnamani, chief executive officer of Medallion Datacenters said that the strong growth of Africa’s digital economy will drive demand for more data centers on the continent. Thus, there is a need to have more data centers to be able to accommodate the surge.
“While we call for local hosting of content and data, there is also the need to build more data centers to be able to accommodate the strong growth of Africa’s digital economy,” he said.
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He said Medallion already boasts of a data center, which is touted as the largest Peering and Connectivity hub in West Africa with 70+ Carriers and ISPs present and accommodate 68 percent of Nigeria Internet Exchange’s traffic.
“But going by the strong growth of Africa’s digital economy, it is building another datacenter with 232 racks, that has access to the initial datacenter and providers via campus connects,” Nnamani said.
