to shed some more light on KIXP background.... *Note: This piece is an excerpt from a paper published by Summit Strategies in 2006 which evaluated the impact of KIXP between 2002-2006* * * *Frontier bursting the local internet space - the case of Brian Longwe, 2006* *One of the things that always puzzled me during the early days of our country’s Internet and while I was network manager for one of our first Internet Service Providers was the incredible delays on delivery of electronic mail to other local providers. After running a number of different diagnostics it became apparent that messages from my network to another local ISPs network – were going out of the country, to Europe, then across the Pacific ocean to the USA, then over to Asia before finding their way to their destination which was in many cases literally across the street!* This was obviously an unacceptable state of affairs and the subject of this inefficient routing of local traffic came up several times in discussions at the East African Internet Association (EAIA) – a group that I was involved in that brought together providers and consumers alike to share knowledge and experiences gained from the information-rich Internet. During these discussions various suggestions were tabled as to how we could deal with this problem, but none of them had the ring of truth to them that gave one the deep certainty that the problem once solved would remain solved. A couple of years later while doing some research over the Internet one day I came across mention of a networking workshop that I had heard about once or twice on the EAIA mailing list. This was the Internet Society’s networking workshop for developing countries which took place annually in the United States of America. What interested me most was that one of the training tracks they offered dealt with infrastructure and had a section specifically on Internet exchanges. I hastened to submit my application and was elated when I was not only accepted but also granted a waiver on the tuition. I then pleaded with my employers at the time, a Christian non-profit service provider to support me by paying for my airfare and living allowance while taking this course. One experience I will never forget was when I went to get my visa from the US embassy. When the visa officer asked me what I was going to do, I told her that I was going to learn how to run Internet networks better. She immediately smiled at me and said* **“If this will help improve the service I get from my current ISP, then you have got to go.”* Little did she know that the knowledge I obtained from this workshop would create the engine and nucleus that drives the Kenyan Internet as we know it today. While on the course I had the opportunity to meet many of the people who played a key role in designing and operating the Internet as we know it today. What struck me the most was how ordinary and passionate about technology they were. Another thing that surprised was learning that several other Kenyan engineers had benefited from the same training in previous years and it made me wonder why they had never brought their knowledge into our frequent attempts and online discussions. But by far the individual who had the most impact on me was one of our instructors, a consulting engineer for Cisco Systems called Barry Raveendran Greene. Barry taught me the fundamentals of Internet Exchange points drawing from his own experience in setting these up in Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong and a number of other Asian states. In simple terms he emphasized both the technical and social interventions that would be needed to make a successful IXP. By the time we were through the course I felt armed with the knowledge and understanding to finally help deal with our local traffic problem. Immediately upon arrival back in Nairobi, I started visiting the ISPs one by one, I set up appointments with their managers and in many cases owners and sat with them face to face to explain that now I had it. Now I knew exactly how we could deal with our local traffic. Shortly after these visits the Kenyan ISP association – TESPOK - was established and one of it’s objectives was to set up an Internet exchange point. We had several meetings during which I shared my recently acquired knowledge on the technical approach to set up the exchange. I also contacted Barry Greene to request assistance with our planning. I was overjoyed when he offered to obtain a donation of equipment from Cisco for the core of the IXP so that we wouldn’t have too much of a financial burden to get it going. Barry subsequently came to Kenya and helped us with the hands-on set-up and configuration of the first four ISPs that connected to the KIXP. There were many other details that went into operationalising the KIXP, I can’t cover all of them here but will highlight how it was named. At first I really wanted to call it KIX but I was informed by Bill Manning of EP.NET<http://www.linkedin.com/pub/bill-manning/2/b58/469> – the list of global exchange points that the name was already being used by the Korean Internet Exchange, I then thought about KENYAIX – but found that too long. Eventually KIXP came to mind and I liked it so much that I pleaded with Bill to allow us to use it and immediately registered KIXP.NET. It fills me with joy to see that today, this dream that I carried in my heart is not only running very efficiently without my involvement (I handed over the operational responsibility three years ago) but has become the epicentre of Kenya’s internet with such organizations as the Kenya Revenue Authority referring to KIXP as a “strategic resource”. Today KIXP is keeping millions of packets of Kenyan data local and saving hundreds of thousands of shillings which would otherwise have been spent on carrying these packets over international links. On Tue, Apr 10, 2012 at 9:14 AM, robert yawe <robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

Hi,

Please apply Moore's Law.

Regards

Robert Yawe KAY System Technologies Ltd Phoenix House, 6th Floor P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200 Kenya

Tel: +254722511225, +254202010696 ------------------------------ *From:* Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe@gmail.com> *To:* robertyawe@yahoo.co.uk *Cc:* KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet@lists.kictanet.or.ke> *Sent:* Sunday, 8 April 2012, 19:47 *Subject:* Re: [kictanet] [Skunkworks] Even Safaricom these days thinks KIXP is non-existent!

Well Peter,

As mentioned, about 7 or 8 years ago, when I was still on the board of directors of TESPOK, I suggested a governance structure that gave KIXP independence from TESPOK, it's 'mother' institution. The main rationale here was to ensure that KIXP maintains a separate, independent existence, regardless of what happened to TESPOK.

This was during a TESPOK strategy meeting where the key message was "The African ISP is dead, long live the African ISP" based on a paper by Russell Southwood of Balancing Act Africa. The essence of which was that with the onslaught of mobile operators going into internet access provision, the only way that ISPs would survive would be through consolidation via mergers/acquisition or a complete redefinition of business focus and strategy. What was evident to me (but seemingly not to others) was that as the ISP industry transformed, there would be fewer players, and thus, less democracy - especially with regards to governance issues.

At the same time, KIXP was attracting plenty of interest from non-ISPs and already had non-ISP members such as KENIC, KRA and others - it was evident that the interest would continue, especially as the sector evolved with greater participation from content creators, hosting companies, data-centres etc... KIXP would become the de-facto facility for providing industry actors with data interconnection and interchange.

For those of you unfamiliar with KIXP's history - we had to register a company KIXP Ltd, and file for an IXP license from CCK, in order to become operational after the forced closure of the IXP in 2000. My proposal was that KIXP be given full autonomy, have a board of directors appointed by members in full standing, and be run as a business, similar to LINX in the UK, and other successful IXPs around the world. As part of my proposals I shared the attached diagram (which I have just found in my archives). The Board would identify and appoint a CEO, who would then identify suitable staff to meet organisational growth. Being a business, some implied issues were self-sustainability, a business plan with clear growth, and social or financial returns for the 'shareholders'.

My proposals fell upon deaf ears and it is sad for me now to see a frail and seemingly weak KIXP that cannot seem to consistently engage newcomers to the industry with the benefits of local traffic exchange.

A simple question - how many of the TEAMs/SEACOM/EASSY bandwidth-holders are peering at KIXP? As mentioned by someone else, some of our traffic is being exchanged in exotic places like Mumbai, London etc...

So, I continue shaking my head...

Brian

On Sun, Apr 8, 2012 at 6:33 PM, Peter Karunyu <pkarunyu@gmail.com> wrote:

@Brian, would you mind sharing these recommendations? It doesn't hurt to know :-)

On Sun, Apr 8, 2012 at 4:32 PM, Brian Munyao Longwe <blongwe@gmail.com>wrote:

I had a conversation a couple of weeks ago with some folk about the governance of KIXP. I made some recommendations about 8yrs ago regarding the setup of a structure that would allow for the unfettered growth and resilience of the exchange. It is sad that individuals at that time who wanted to control the exchange resisted these. Now, when we are faced with these, and other symptoms of the root cause, some of us can only shake our heads. (Yes, I am doing a lot of that lately)

Pole kwetu,

Mblayo

On Sun, Apr 8, 2012 at 1:31 PM, Kinuthia Ngugi <kinuthia.ngugi@gmail.com>wrote:

I think this is problem is recent and serious! all this easter weekend i've been having timeouts while browsing local sites, yet sites outside .ke are loading normally....

On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 9:42 PM, Odhiambo Washington <odhiambo@gmail.com>wrote:

Okay. In the same breath, would you be able to fix the routing of the 197.x.x.x towards 196.200.26.x, please??

On Sat, Apr 7, 2012 at 19:49, John Gitau <jgitau@gmail.com> wrote:

I think we can easily fix this.

Sent from my iPad

On 7 Apr 2012, at 18:41, Brian Ngure <brian@pixie.co.ke> wrote:

I think I mentioned this some time ago. Kenyan ISPs don't know KIXP exists. Or maybe they get more $$ by not using KIXP somehow? Regard's Brian Ngure On 7 Apr 2012 14:14, "Odhiambo Washington" <odhiambo@gmail.com> wrote:

WAN Configuration Type Connection Type 3G/UMTS Login Status Connected Signal Status -40 DBm Connection Uptime 17:19:48 IP Address* 41.81.20.209 * Subnet Mask 255.255.255.255 Gateway 10.64.64.64 DNS 1 196.201.208.2 DNS 2 209.244.0.3 DNS 3

C:\Users\Washington>tracert 196.200.26.114

Tracing route to 196.200.26.114.accesskenya.com [196.200.26.114] over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms 2 ms DD-WRT [192.168.1.1] 2 * * * Request timed out. 3 66 ms 78 ms 68 ms 196.201.217.2 4 66 ms 78 ms 108 ms 196.201.217.3 5 107 ms 68 ms 78 ms 192.168.161.110 6 137 ms 229 ms 138 ms 192.168.128.134 7 108 ms 70 ms 77 ms 192.168.128.5 8 145 ms 78 ms 78 ms 192.168.128.5 9 159 ms 78 ms 78 ms 192.168.153.13 10 78 ms 78 ms 78 ms 192.168.128.77 11 158 ms 158 ms 148 ms if-4-2-2.core1.MLV-Mumbai.as6453.net [209.58.105.25] 12 98 ms 128 ms 168 ms 196.201.208.43 13 158 ms 148 ms 148 ms TenGE-2-1-BP_CORE01.accesskenya.com[196.207.31.146] 14 210 ms 217 ms 218 ms ix-4-1-1.core1.MLV-Mumbai.as6453.net[209.58.105.142] 15 1178 ms 196 ms 158 ms 196.200.26.114.accesskenya.com[196.200.26.114]

Trace complete.

-- Best regards, Odhiambo WASHINGTON, Nairobi,KE +254733744121/+254722743223 _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ I can't hear you -- I'm using the scrambler. <image001.png>Please consider the environment before printing this email.

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"Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for, because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything."

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-- Brian Munyao Longwe e-mail: blongwe@gmail.com cell: +254715964281 blog : http://zinjlog.blogspot.com meta-blog: http://mashilingi.blogspot.com "Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for, because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything." -- Brian Munyao Longwe e-mail: blongwe@gmail.com cell: +254715964281 blog : http://zinjlog.blogspot.com meta-blog: http://mashilingi.blogspot.com "Give us clear vision that we may know where to stand and what to stand for, because unless we stand for something, we shall fall for anything."