South Africa’s biggest Internet exchange point hits major milestone
Teraco announced on Tuesday that its NAPAfrica Internet exchange point (IXP) has reached a milestone of 6Tbps of traffic, driven by the continued growth and expansion of its peering community.
“With 680 networks peering at its exchange points, NAPAfrica continues to play a critical role in keeping African Internet traffic local, reducing costs, and improving network performance,” it stated.
Teraco said NAPAfrica has more than 2,300 physically connected ports and a total connected capacity of almost 45 terabits.
Its latest announcement comes after NAPAfrica offered 400Gbps interconnects to its clients in March to accommodate the growing bandwidth demands of content and cloud providers.
In addition to NAPAfrica’s milestone achievement, Teraco also announced the introduction of a new application programming interface (API) for its Africa Cloud Exchange (ACX).
Teraco said the API enables customers to automate cloud connectivity and enhance hybrid and multi-cloud performance across Africa.
It explained that it lets customers provision ACX connections at the software level, creating virtual connections to any participant on the exchange once a physical connection is established.
ACX improves enterprise hybrid and multi-cloud performance by providing secure, direct, and flexible interconnection to a wide range of local and global cloud providers.
“These developments reflect Teraco’s ongoing commitment to creating a more connected and collaborative cloud ecosystem,” said Andrew Owens, Teraco interconnection and peering lead.
Owens said increased traffic volumes between cloud providers, enterprises, and networks highlight how peering is an enabler in accelerating digital transformation across the continent.
“The continued growth at NAPAfrica is a testament to the continent’s vibrant Internet community,” Owens said.
“The community has embraced peering, data-intensive applications, cloud adoption, and the rising demand for video, content, and gaming services.”
Keeping Internet traffic local
Teraco said most of Africa’s Internet traffic was traditionally routed through Europe, resulting in increased latency and higher costs.
NAPAfrica has helped keep African traffic within the continent, leading to improved performance for ISPs, mobile operators, and enterprises, while fostering a more self-sufficient African Internet ecosystem.
Although many global IXPs charge for port access, NAPAfrica offers free peering, enabling ISPs, content providers, and enterprises to reduce transit costs while improving network performance.
It operates in Johannesburg, Cape Town, and Durban, three of South Africa’s key Internet traffic hubs. NAPAfrica serves as a critical interconnection point for regional and international networks.
Teraco said that NAPAfrica attracts global technology leaders and content providers, including Akamai, Amazon, Cloudflare, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Netflix, and TikTok.
This enables direct content delivery and cloud access across Africa. In 2025, NAPAfrica welcomed 32 new members, including Cable & Wireless Seychelles, Rain Networks, and SES.
South Africa’s strategic position as a landing point for submarine cables, including 2Africa, ACE, EASSy, Equiano, METISS, SAT3/SAFE, Seacom, and WACS, has significantly bolstered international connectivity.
Networks across sub-Saharan Africa peer at NAPAfrica to access global content efficiently.
It said that NAPAfrica has deployed additional cache servers in Teraco data centres to cover regional connectivity requirements, including hosting Netflix Open Connect in Cape Town and Durban.
By reducing the distance data must travel, this initiative enables faster load times and enriches the user experience for local audiences.
Loading ...