ARCT boss calls on ISPs to sign up to IXP

The director general of Burundi’s Agency for Regulation and Control of Telecommunications (Agence de Regulation et de Controle des Telecom, ARCT), Deogratias Rurimunzu, has called on domestic ISPs to sign up to the country’s national Internet Exchange Point (IXP), in order to help internet access in the East African country. According to Mr Rurimunzu internet penetration is running at 8.2%, or 761,061 users in a country of eleven million people – among the lowest in the region. He argues that by joining the IXP, ISPs will be better placed to exchange internet traffic less expensively via interconnection agreements, in turn making it easier for them to reinvest their savings in extending their network and reaching more people.