Pakistan’s first internet exchange opens at HEC

[Devil Soul]

Pakistan’s first internet exchange opens at HEC
By APP
Published: January 28, 2017
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ISLAMABAD: In what the government describes is a move to ‘connect the unconnected’, an internet exchange point has been set up at the Higher Education Commission office in Islamabad.

“We aim to connect the unconnected and aim at providing ICT services to the youth of the whole country which will surely change the fate of the people of unserved and underserved areas,” Minister for Information Technology Anusha Rehman said at the inauguration on Friday.

The Pakistan Internet Exchange Point (PKIX) is slated to serve as an exchange point for all local internet service providers (ISPs), which would help in reducing latency rates for all domestic traffic.

The exchange would allow networks to connect directly through it rather than through one or more third-party networks. It will also enable local networks to efficiently exchange information at a common point within Pakistan rather than exchanging local Internet traffic with the outside world – a supra-intranet.

“No government can work alone, we need to work together as a team with the public and private sector so that we can achieve our universal goals,” the minister said.

In the last three years, she said, the private sector has volunteered itself for all public sector initiative although there was some reluctance on this in the past she noted. “Public and private sector have now teamed up with us to overcome hurdles.”

She added that the creation of the exchange was part of the new telecommunication policy which the government had introduced last year.

“Steps are being taken under the telecommunication policy to take Pakistan to its ultimate destination as a key player in IT,” she said.

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) Chairman Dr Islmail Shah said that they had held consultations with all the stakeholders to reach a consensus on establishing the first IXP of Pakistan.

“International best practices were followed and five working groups were formed having representation from all stakeholders, focusing on all aspect of the establishment of IXP for Pakistan,” he said.

Earlier, HEC Chief Dr Mukhtar Ahmed said that the Ministry of IT, HEC and PTA need to work together to obtain the benefits of IT tools and technologies.

He added that the HEC was playing its part to facilitate higher education institutions with ICT services. Over seven national telecom and internet carriers are part of PKIX, while the hardware for the point has been provided by Huawei.

The point set up in Islamabad will be followed by other Regional Internet Exchange Points in cities such as Lahore, Karachi and Quetta.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 28th, 2017.

 

[somebozo]

wait for few weeks to have everything broken and stolen..this project will then become history like many others of HEC??

 

[SherDil]

Pakistan Telecommunication Authority inaugurated Pakistan Internet Exchange today in Islamabad.



PTA said that at least two more internet exchanges (for Karachi and Lahore) are in pipeline and will be deployed with time.

After this all local internet traffic will be routed through local internet exchange. Previously, local internet traffic was routed through foreign internet exchanges — placed outside Pakistan — and hence caused increased latency and tons of cost for transporting bandwidth even when both user and server were located with-in Pakistan.

By keeping local traffic local and avoiding international links, local operators and users can reap substantial cost savings, provide substantial local bandwidth and significantly improve local Internet performance.

An inauguration ceremony for IXP was held in Islamabad where Anusha Rehman, Minister for IT and Telecom, was the chief guest. Dr. Ismail Shah, Chairman PTA was host of the event while Dr. Mukhtar Ahmed, Chairman HEC and Country Lead for Huawei Pakistan were also present on stage.

Pakistan Internet Exchange — that was operational for some months now as a pilot — is already joined by eight ISPs and telecom operators.

Current operators include PTCL, Nayalel, Telenor, Wateen, Multinet, Cybernet, Wi-Tribe and PERN, whereas rest of the operators are in process of terminating their fiber.

It was revealed that Pakistan Internet Exchange is already processing 3GBs of data per second while total bandwidth per day reached 3 TBs per day.

Background

Telecom policy 2015, issued by MoIT last year, allowed to develop Internet Exchange with the consultation of all stakeholders.

Under the light of Telecom policy 2015 Telecom industry of Pakistan decided to launch Internet Exchange Point(xP) in Pakistan, to minimize the Internet bandwidth cost and improve quality of Internet Service due to drastic decrease in latency of the local Internet traffic.

PTA took the leading role and started a consultation process with all the stakeholders together to reach a consensus on establishing the first IXP of Pakistan.

International best practices were followed and five working groups were formed having representation from all stakeholders, focusing on all aspect of establishment of IXP for Pakistan.

Working groups recommended to establish IXP at a neutral location in Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore and HEC’s premises was chosen because of their central locations and as a neutral and non-commercial status which was acceptable to all.

An interim IXP Board was formed comprising of representative of PTA, cellular operators, ISPs, LDI/lntl bandwidth provider, academia, ISOC and HEC.

A five day workshop was conducted in April 2016, at PTA lslamabad, for the capacity building of Pakistani Internet unity, ISOC and NSRP trainers conducted the training to representatives of all ISPs and mobile phone operators, on commercial and technical aspects of IXP.

PTA didn’t give the timeline for establishment of Lahore and Karachi Internet Exchanges but said that they will be up and running very soon.