One of South Africa’s largest Web hosting companies, Hetzner, is now peering with Internet service providers, telecommunications operators and content distribution networks at Teraco’s NAPAfrica network peering facility in Isando.
Hetzner, which hosts about 330 000 websites and other services through its self-managed server platform, said on Thursday that it now has a 10Gbit/s circuit directly into NAPAfrica.
“Hetzner’s content is now easily available to all network operators at the various Internet exchange points in South Africa,” the company said in a statement. The company also peers at South Africa’s oldest Internet exchange point, the Johannesburg Internet Exchange (Jinx).
“NAPAfrica in Cape Town was our first exchange link a few years ago, and we’re pleased to now interconnect with them in Johannesburg, too. This peering has mutual benefit as we now directly connect our large volume of hosted content with the many content distribution networks and Internet service providers located there,” said Hetzner marketing and communications manager Athena Turner.
“By having a presence at NAP Africa and Jinx, Hetzner has significantly increased its reach into the local Internet landscape through its open peering policy,” Turner said. “Combined with Jinx peering a year ago, over 65% of their local traffic is now routed over these exchange points rather than via costly transit links.”
Hetzner said that through the two exchange points, the company contributes more than 4Gbit/s of network traffic.
“We actively support such initiatives, and advocate for settlement-free peering — the voluntary and free exchange of traffic between two networks, for mutual benefit, such as NAPAfrica, to reduce the cost of Internet connectivity to the public, reduce latency with simplified routing, and increase network resilience by offering multiple connection options,” the company said.
It said it now peers with most of the large network operators in South Africa, including Openserve, Neotel, Telkom Internet, MTN Business, Vodacom, Optinet, Vox, Google, Microsoft, Hurricane Electric, Cloudflare, Borwood and iBurst. — © 2017 NewsCentral Media
