The Internet Society () will bring its annual Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF) to Tanzania for the first time.
The organisation has partnered with the Tanzania Internet Service Providers Association (TISPA) to hold the seventh annual AfPIF in the country’s capital, Dar es Salaam, 30 August- 1 September, 2016.
Serving as a platform to expand Internet infrastructure and services across Africa, the event will bring together key players to address the opportunities in interconnection, peering and traffic exchange on the continent.
The forum seeks to build cross-border interconnection opportunities and facilitate discussions on African Internet infrastructure challenges, including terrestrial capacity, development of national and regional Internet Exchange Points (IXP) and local content.
“Internet connectivity in Africa has increased over the last few years delivering access to close to a third of the population on the continent. Improving interconnection and traffic exchange has become even more important today as an increasing number of Africans rely on the Internet in their daily lives,” explained Dawit Bekele, Regional Director for Africa of the Internet Society.
“Since we first launched this event six years ago, we have seen a notable increase in investments and initiatives that have led to improvements in the extent and quality of national and regional interconnection. This has been possible thanks to the connections people make at AfPIF. The forum has in particular enabled Africans to collaborate and work together towards the development of the Internet infrastructure on the continent,” he added.
“TISPA remains committed to advancing and protecting the interests of its members while promoting the advancement of the Internet sector. We believe by working with AfPIF to host this auspicious event in August will be one leap forward for Tanzania in terms of network optimization” said Vinay Choudary, the chairman of TISPA.
AfPIF has previously been held in Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, Morocco, Senegal and Mozambique. Last year’s event featured 232 participants from 57 countries and an online participation of 978 people in 77 different countries.
The Internet Society aims to advance the African interconnection agenda at AfPIF-2016, in line with the vision to achieve 80% local and 20% international Internet traffic by the year 2020. The event welcomes sponsors as well as past attendees and new participants to join the leading peering and interconnection forum for Africa.
Promising more than just a forum – AfPIF connects Internet service, infrastructure, and content providers, with government regulators and policymakers to provide an opportunity to advance peering and interconnection arrangements and to make a positive contribution to Africa’s Internet resources.
