Caribbean internet exchange:
A new internet exchange point has been launched in the Caribbean as part of the 670,000-euro (US$682,000) Caribix project.
The Saint Barthélemy internet exchange port (SBH-IX) was officially launched on June 30.
An IXP is a location at which internet service providers (ISPs) exchange internet traffic domestically between their customers on a cost-neutral basis.
The new IXP will facilitate the interconnection of the networks of the ISPs within the territory, increasing local routing and improving network performance, connectivity and quality of services.
In the Caribbean it is reasonable to expect that latency would be reduced from some 140ms to 3-5ms through the use of a local IXP, according to a Caribbean Telecommunications Union (CTU) white paper published last year.
The same white paper notes that in the case of moving the exchange point from New York to Basseterre, St Kitts the decrease in distance is so dramatic that costs can be minimized to near zero.
The new exchange in Saint Barthélemy is also a critical component of the territory’s disaster risk reduction strategy.
Caribix aims to establish and develop internet exchange points in the French territories of Saint Martin, Saint Barthélemy and Guadeloupe.
The project has received funding from the INTERREG Caraïbes program, co-funded by the European Regional Development Fund of the European Union.
Partners in the project include Dauphin Telecom and Telem (Sint Marteen), Guadeloupe Tech (Guadeloupe) and the CTU.
The project is expected to run until October.
According to the CTU’s website, there are active IXPs in the Caribbean in Barbados, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sint Marteen and Trinidad and tobago.
