18 February 2020

Located Mombasa, the Asteroid IXP will enable much improved internet interconnection in east Africa

Asteroid International, the global interconnection platform innovator, has launched a state-of-the-art and highly automated Internet Exchange Point (IXP) solution in Kenya’s oldest city.

Located in the modern, hyper connected, carrier neutral icolo facilities in Mombasa, the Asteroid IXP will enable much improved internet interconnection in east Africa and support the region’s strong digital growth.

The exchange point already has US tech giants such as Facebook and Google present, as well as several local Kenyan and African networks.

“We are very proud to deploy an exchange point in Kenya”, said Asteroid chief executive officer (CEO) Remco van Mook.

“Mombasa is the perfect place to interconnect the region using the world class icolo facilities. There is a tremendous need for modern, well-run, cost effective IXPs in Africa.”

Van Mook added that the Asteroid IXP will provide modern interconnection and contribute to improved internet accessibility by lowering costs and better internet performance for users in region.

An IXP allows many different internet businesses to come together and exchange traffic locally and efficiently, through “peering”.

The Asteroid IXP platform is built on lightweight, scalable architecture and advanced toolsets.

Designed with automation at the core, the Asteroid solution provides security from day one, a modern feature set, it has been heralded by some as most efficient and cost effective solution on the market.

“We are very excited to partner with Asteroid,” added icolo CEO Ranjith Cherickel.

“Asteroid brings considerable experience from the interconnection space. Their ultramodern IXP solution at the icolo data centre, will not only help to significantly improve the performance between ISPs in the region, but also attract new players to the country and boost the interconnection growth more broadly.”