Seychelles gets first Internet Exchange Point

Seychelles gets first Internet Exchange Point

24-February-2015


Seychelles reached another milestone in its internet service last week when the country’s first Internet Exchange Point (Sey-IX) was launched.
The service has been made available through the joint efforts of the Seychelles Internet Exchange Point (IXP) Association, the Department of Information Telecommunications Technology (DICT) and the African Union Commission.

The service was launched by the Vice-President of the Republic of Seychelles Danny Faure in the presence of Dr Elham M. A Ibrahim, the African Union Commissioner for Infrastructure and Energy; the principal secretary for DICT Benjamin Choppy; the chairman of the Seychelles Internet Exchange Point (IXP) Gilbert Lebon and other members of DICT and internet service providers.

The Seychelles Internet Exchange Point is located in Room 7 on the second floor of Ebrahim Building in Victoria.

The African Union has given assistance for Seychelles to set up and operate an internet exchange point as part of Africa's internet exchnage project to facilitae the establishment of IXPs across Africa.
The launch of the service here follows two major workshops organised in 2013 and 2014 to support the establishment of the IXP in Seychelles and the deliberations of the Seychelles IXP working group.

The workshop held in 2013 was based on the best practice in capacity building related to the project and the other one held in 2014 was about the technical aspects related to the setting up, operation and administration of IXP in Seychelles.

Intelvision, Kokonet, Victoria Computer Services, Space 95 and Maven have got together to provide an IXP of all internet exchange points not only to benefit the people of Seychelles but all major stakeholders such as internet service providers, telephone operators, banks, hotels, DICT, private companies, government ministries, the University of Seychelles, just to name some.

Mr Lebon said internet has become an integral part of our everyday lives and we have become so dependent on it.
In his address for the occasion, Vice-President Faure said the opening of the Internet Exchange Point in Seychelles is another milestone in the internet service in the country.

He said this has been made possible by a hard and collaborative work of a number of organisations and people.
As for Dr Ebrahim, she said Seychelles is one of the few African countries that has a dedicated space for its internet exchange point.

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