Internet Village Blockchain Community

Building a solid Internet foundation takes time, effort, and trust.

If you needed to get a letter to your neighbor, you wouldn’t send it via airmail across the country and back first, would you? For much of the world, this is how Internet traffic is routed. This is why we need Internet exchange points (IXPs) and a sustainable peering infrastructure.

Peering happens when networks agree to exchange traffic with each other through IXPs. Networks can keep traffic local, provide faster connections, and improve the experience of the people relying on them. Because they no longer need to route traffic via expensive international links, connectivity costs drop, too. They also improve overall network performance and resiliency.

Keeping Half of All Internet Traffic Local

We have been helping address connectivity gaps for many years, including building Internet exchange points (IXPs) to improve traffic flow and Internet service. IXPs create shorter, more direct routes for Internet traffic. They provide a more affordable alternative to sending local Internet traffic via international links, which can be an expensive business, and now we want to reach the 50/50 point.

To achieve an ambitious plan to keep at least half of all Internet traffic in selected economies local by 2025, we must advocate and partner with relevant stakeholders like policymakers, technical communities, and the Internet Society community

Working together to keep half of all traffic local in selected economies by 2025

It’s simple: the fastest route from Point A to Point B is a straight line. But what happens when Internet traffic starts at Point A and zigzags through faraway places before making it to Point B? Internet access is slower and costs more. This is the reality for many people who live in areas without sufficient Internet infrastructure.

Enter the 50/50 Vision—an ambitious plan to keep at least half of all Internet traffic in selected economies local by 2025. When we reach this goal, the people who need it most will have faster, stronger, and cheaper Internet access.

The Internet Society has been helping address connectivity gaps for many years, including building Internet exchange points (IXPs) to improve traffic flow and improve Internet service. IXPs create shorter, more direct routes for Internet traffic. They provide a more affordable alternative to sending local Internet traffic via international links, which can be an expensive business.

Now, we need to go even further.

To achieve this vision, we must advocate and partner with relevant stakeholders like policymakers, technical communities, and the Internet Society community.

For policymakers, we seek policies that:

Encourage a thriving and open connectivity market and foster strong technical communities

Streamline policy and regulatory processes to encourage regional and international entities to participate in the local interconnection environment

Support increasing local traffic and content

For technical communities, we seek growing engagement between local stakeholders to:

Actively support knowledge exchange

Host open mailing and discussion lists

Organize events and peering forums that share best practices and serve as a way to find peering partners

Share this vision and contribute to ensuring at least 50 percent of local traffic remains local in their communities

Intertwined with these efforts, the Internet Society’s organization members, individual members, chapters, special internet groups, and partners play an integral role by:

Taking training courses on the importance of IXPs and how to build and support them

Defending peering and interconnection in their local communities

Engaging with local IXPs to understand their impact on the local Internet ecosystem

How Do We Measure This Vision?

We’ve devised a methodology to understand where content is served from so that we can measure our progress toward the 50/50 Vision.

But measuring local versus non-local traffic levels is often not straightforward. Access providers are usually aware of the most-used services, but don’t delineate between local and non-local traffic, and the data they do collect is rarely shared publicly.

To map traffic flows, we’re using the data from two open-source tools, Open Observatory of Network Interference (OONI) and the RIPE NCC (the Regional Internet Registry for Europe, the Middle East and parts of Central Asia).

Our methodology quantifies the level at which Over The Top (OTT) services (video streaming, web surfing, social media, etc.) fetch their content from a local server/cache rather than externally (out of the country).

Measure the Health of the Internet, Help Collect Local Traffic Measurements