MTHULISI SIBANDA
JOHANNESBURG, -RESIDENTS are poised to benefit from faster connections and more efficient access to online services following the recent expansion of the Johannesburg Internet Exchange (JINX).
INX-ZA, an autonomous division of the Internet Service Providers’ Association of South Africa (ISPA), has for the first time expanded the JINX beyond the Rosebank facility that has served Africa’s oldest Internet exchange for 20 years.
This local Internet milestone follows an agreement between INX-ZA and leading web hosting company and data centre operator, Hetzner.
The partnership has seen INX-ZA extend the reach of JINX to Hetzner’s well-positioned, vendor-neutral and fully-redundant data centre in Samrand, near Centurion in Pretoria, Gauteng.
The multisite launch follows last month’s launch of a Durban Internet Exchange (DINX) multisite.
“This speaks to South Africa’s growing status within the global Internet community,” says Nishal Goburdhan, INX-ZA Manager.
Juan van Zyl, Hetzner’s data centre Operations Manager, says the company has always been a proponent of open peering with other network operators.
“This is why we are thrilled to be part of this initiative,” says van Zyl.
Hetzner’s Data Centre Park is located close to major fibre routes and telecoms infrastructure, enabling effortless interconnects, lower latencies and better performance when connecting to the internet exchange point.
“Deciding on a location for server hosting or to establish a network Point of Presence (POP) is an important decision for colocation customers and network operators. Hosting the first JINX multisite node reinforces Hetzner as a business enabler, offering seamless connectivity into JINX from within our Samrand Data Centre Park,” adds Van Zyl.
Internet exchange points enable internet service providers to interconnect their network operators benefit from lower costs, resulting in more affordable bandwidth which is crucial for the development of the internet.
The extension of JINX makes it easy for internet companies who already have infrastructure at the existing JINX location, to connect seamlessly to networks at the new locations.
Peers at the new site will have the same peering experience and will be able to be directly linked to all existing and future JINX peers, with no additional complexity.
The Johannesburg exchange point has provided continuous, uninterrupted services to users since June 1996.
