An Internet exchange point is a physical infrastructure through which ISPs exchange traffic between their networks. Many ISPs in the Caribbean pass the data through faraway networks in the United States or Europe before rerouting to their consumers in their own countries. The new Belize IXP was formally inaugurated in a ceremony attended by Patrick Jason Faber, Minister of Education, Youth, Sports and Culture, and Frank Mena, Minister for Public Utilities. Also present at the opening are John Avery, Chairman of the Public Utilities Commission, Bevil Wooding, Internet Strategist at Packet Clearing House, and Errol Cattouse, Chief Operating Officer, Centaur Cable, and the newly appointed chairman of BIXP.
“For ISPs in Belize, having a local IXP means there is now a place in-country where they can come together to interconnect their networks and exchange local Internet traffic. This translates to cost savings for ISPs and increased network reliability for their corporate and residential customers,” explained Bevil Wooding in his feature address at the launch. “The new IXP is expected to help improve Internet service in Belize by eliminating dependence on international connectivity for local Internet traffic exchange.
The new facility, the twelfth IXP to be activated in the Caribbean, will lower the average per-bit delivery cost for local ISPs and significantly reduce the round-trip time for Internet traffic between local ISP networks. As a result, users can expect a more reliable, more resilient local Internet,” Wooding added. His audience included representatives of the Belize government, local Internet service providers, the private sector, the media, and the University of Belize.
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The BIXP launch is a major milestone for the telecommunication sector in the Central American nation. The country has ranked poorly by regional standards. The Belize Public Utilities Commission and industry watchers hope that establishing a local IXP can now catalyze the delivery of services based on e-health, distance learning, domestic data storage, video and audio streaming, e-government services VoIP, and other applications that depend on the local traffic exchange. According to Cattouse, the local exchange point is expected to serve as a hub for local Internet operators, a catalyst for innovation, and the developing of new Internet services in Belize.
The Belize IXP was established with Packet Clearing House (PCH) and the Caribbean Network Operators Group, CaribNOG. In the lead-up to the launch, PCH and CaribNOG successfully organized several IXP workshops attended by ISPs, government officials, computer engineers, and the private sector. Wooding, who has played a key role in establishing IXPs across the region, explained that with the proliferation of local IXPs, the Caribbean can now earnestly begin building applications that run efficiently across local networks.
“Initiatives to connect our schools, courts, police stations, health facilities, and government and business offices and to deliver local and regional Internet-based services now have a far better chance of being deployed without the frustrations that would normally be associated with bandwidth-intensive local applications in the region,” Wooding said. He pointed out, however, that launching a new IXP does not guarantee ultimate success. More work has to be done, he said.
“Discussions have to be initiated to develop new country-level network services. This must include strategies and incentives for ISPs to upgrade the last mile of their networks to deliver improved speeds and quality of service to consumers and businesses. In this regard, we can see the IXP launch as a small but vital step in the journey toward developing the Belizean and the Caribbean Internet Economy.”
Packet Clearing House, a US-based non-profit firm that has played an active role in establishing over two-thirds of the world’s IXPs, has worked closely with the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU), an inter-governmental CARICOM organization, to promote the development of IXPs in the Caribbean actively. So far, more than 300 IXPs exist in eighty countries worldwide. Still, some ninety countries that are predominantly developing economies do not yet have IXPs and depend on imported Internet bandwidth.
