7 September 2017 - At ION Conference Durban, William Stucke presents on how peering behaviour affects growth of the Internet?

1. How Peering Behaviour Affects
Growth of the Internet
Ecosystem
William Stucke
iWeek 2017

2. Agenda
• DNS Africa Market Study for ICANN
• Study Results
• IXPs in Africa
• Why IXPs are important
• Comparison of IXPs with Internet Penetration
• Summary

3. DNS Africa Market Study for
ICANN

4. Background and Scope
 54 African countries,
including 6 Indian and
Atlantic Ocean Islands
 Identify strengths and
weaknesses in the
industry ecosystem
within the region
 Develop
recommendations on
how to advance the
industry
 Explore options for
establishing a DNS
observatory 4

5. Meet the Team
• Highly qualified team of experts,
possessing over 70 years of
experience in the domain name
market industry in Africa
• The team has worked throughout
the African continent providing
research-based in-depth analysis
and recommendations on a number
of Information Communication
Technology (ICT) based projects
• Multilingual and includes members
based in Southern and West Africa
5

6. Methodology
Online Survey:
 4 Languages (English, French, Portuguese and
Arabic)
 6 Different questionnaires:
 Registry
 Registrant
 Registrar
 Reseller
 Regulator
 IXP Manager
6

7. Methodology 2
 Zone File Analysis
 ccTLD and gTLD zone file analysis
 Significant websites identified
 Web site hosting location analysed
 Web site language identified
 No WHOIS lookups were required
 Interviews
 ICT representatives and key role players
7

8. Methodology 3
 Desktop research
 Regional ecosystem, key measures from respected
publications
 Population, income, literacy, cost to communicate
 Premium domain names
 Payment gateways
 ccTLD processes
 Registrars – local and international
 Pricing
 Infrastructure
8

9. Methodology – Quantitative Analysis
 Record metrics for each ccTLD & gTLD
domain
 Website location, language, IPv6, DNSSEC
 Create regional subset
 Websites hosted in-country, in Africa and overseas
 Analysis by region
 Analysis by language
9

10. Study Results

11. Ranking of Top 20 African Countries
Country Total Score Language Region
South Africa 425 English South
Kenya 413 English East
Nigeria 367 English West
Zimbabwe 356 English South
Tunisia 355 Arabic North
Mauritius 340 English Indian Ocean
Algeria 333 Arabic North
Morocco 332 Arabic North
Egypt 330 Arabic North
Uganda 328 English East
Botswana 297 English South
Tanzania 294 English East
Cameroon 287 French Central
Namibia 274 English South
Ghana 271 English West
Senegal 269 French West
Democratic Rep of Congo 262 French Central
Ivory Coast 255 French West
Seychelles 249 French Indian Ocean
Rwanda 244 English East

12.  Registries
 51 functioning ccTLDs
 Registrar Market
 26 countries have only one Registrar: usually the
Registry
 13 countries have a fully competitive Registrar market
 Registrant Market
 Over 5 million African domains (ccTLD & gTLD)
 4.4 domains / 1000 population
 Value of $52 million p.a.
African DNS Market
12

13. Key Success Factors
1) Infrastructure to facilitate affordable access to the
Internet
2) Digital Awareness with sufficient literacy
3) Conducive Policy, Regulatory and Governance
Framework
4) Payment Gateways to ensure easy payment of fees
5) Price
6) Ease of Registration
7) Confidence & Critical Mass
13

14. Conclusions
 Highly diverse region – with much poverty and instability
 African DNS Market very small @ 4.4 domains / 1000
people, compare with >100 elsewhere
 But the market is growing fast in some places
 Far too many hindrances to growth
 Need to simplify, automate and expedite domain
registration processes
 Some need to lower the cost of ccTLD registration
 Average cost is $84 compared to ~$10 for a .COM domain
 The countries with the highest revenue have the lowest (non zero)
prices.
 Some countries have got it right
14

15. Recommendations: Wider Environment
 Internet access issues must be addressed
 Cost, Availability & Performance
 Policies and investment to support e-commerce
 Countries without local hosting need to build
 IXPs, data centres and fibre networks and ensure
that network operators are prepared to peer with
each other
 Cross-border fibre is vital to all
 Government to offer range of services online
 Ensure freedom of expression online as it
encourages content creation and acts as an
industry driver 15

16. Recommendations:
Domain Name Market 1
 Low / Cost recovery (but not zero) fees for
registering a domain
 Rules which do not require domain registrants to
have a legal presence in the country
 Rules which do not require domain names to
match the business or personal name
 Functioning and easy to use registry landing
pages
 Automatic procedures for registration fulfilment
and payment, usually using EPP and an online
payment gateway 16

17. Effects of Barriers
 Average domains / Country = 55 000
 Excl. Freenom = 29 000
 Excl. Freenom + ZA = 9 215
 12 countries beat this
 Local presence rules: Average domains / country
 No restriction = 86 000
 Excl. Freenom + ZA = 13 000
 Local presence = 5 300
 13 countries restrict registration to locals
 Registration Methods: Average domains / country
 Web / EPP = 78 000
 Excl. Freenom + ZA = 40 000
 Manual / Email = 4 000
 Price:
 Cheaper countries sell 6 times as many domains 17

18. Recommendations:
Domain Name Market 2
 An effective business model and marketing /
consumer awareness strategy
 Appropriate regulatory and governance
mechanisms
 Use the 3R Model
 Registry, Registrar and Registrant
 A sufficient number of Registrars - at least 20 – to
ensure adequate competition
 A simple, quick and cheap dispute resolution
system – commonly called an ‘Alternative Dispute
Resolution’ (ADR) system must be in place 18

19. IXPs in Africa

20. IXPs in Africa
• How many IXPs are there?
• We found 66 listed
• Further research allowed us to qualify only 36 as currently “fully operational”.
• Earlier IXPs that are no longer functioning, like GIXP (Grahamstown) and Ib-IX
(Ibadan) are excluded.
• How “good” is an IXP?
• We developed a set of metrics, called a “Figure of Merit” (FoM) to quantify
the IXPs in each country.

21. IXP Locations

22. IXP FoM
• A simple index based on the following:
• Number of participants
• Peak Traffic
• Age of IXP(s)
• Number of IXPs
• Prefixes exchanged

23. Participants at Operational IXPs
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Participants
South Africa Tanzania Malawi Nigeria Kenya
Angola Ghana Mozambique Tunisia Gambia
Rwanda Botswana Zambia Mauritius Burkina Faso
Congo-Kinshasa Uganda Congo-Brazzaville Sudan Egypt
Benin Madagascar Cote D'Ivoire Namibia Zimbabwe

24. Peak Traffic – Share of Total
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Mbps of IXP Traffic
South Africa Tanzania Angola Nigeria Uganda Egypt
Rwanda Kenya Botswana Ghana Benin Congo-Kinshasa
Gambia Zambia Cote D'Ivoire Mozambique Namibia Mauritius
Sudan Madagascar Malawi Congo-Brazzaville

25. Peak Traffic – Log Scale

26. Age of IXPs
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27. Growth of Currently Operational IXPs in Africa
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1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Growth of Currently Operational IXPs in Africa

28. Number of IXPs
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Number of IXPs per Country

29. Prefixes Exchanged
IPv4 Network Prefixes exchanged at IXPs
South Africa Kenya Egypt Nigeria Uganda Tanzania Mozambique
Tunisia Sudan Rwanda Madagascar Angola Botswana Mauritius
Malawi Benin Gambia Namibia Unknown

30. Peering at Multiple Exchanges

31. Why IXPs are important

32. Why IXPs are important – All the obvious
Reasons

33. Why IXPs are important – Not so Obvious
• 11 out of the Top 20 countries have had an IXP for more than 10 years
• 19 out of the Top 20 countries have an IXP
• Countries with an IXP have 6 x as many domains

34. Comparison of IXPs with Internet
Penetration

35. Internet Penetration
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IXP FoM
Internet Penetration

36. Conclusions
• IXPs are vital building blocks for the Internet
• Public versus private peering not examined here
• In ZA:
• INX IXPs allow Private Peering
• NAPAfrica IXPs offers a Route Server, which facilitates open multilateral
peering
• NAPAfrica IXPs, although much newer, have overtaken INX IXPs
• IXPs are cheap and simple to build
• The Politics remain devilishly difficult