INX-ZA has for the first time expanded the Johannesburg Internet Exchange beyond the Rosebank facility that has served Africa’s oldest Internet exchange for twenty years.

JINX began as a project of the Internet Service Providers’ Association and is now independently managed by INX-ZA which currently operates the only community-run, public Internet exchanges in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban. This local Internet milestone follows an agreement between INX-ZA and leading web hosting company and data centre operator, Hetzner. The partnership has seen INX-ZA extend the reach of JINX to Hetzner's well-positioned, vendor-neutral and fully-redundant data centre in Samrand, near Centurion in Gauteng.

“This month's JINX multisite launch follows last month’s launch of a Durban Internet Exchange multisite. This speaks to South Africa’s growing status within the global Internet community,” said Nishal Goburdhan, INX-ZA Manager.

Hetzner’s Data Centre Park is located close to major fibre routes and telecoms infrastructure, enabling effortless interconnects, lower latencies and better performance when connecting to the Internet exchange point. “We’ve always been a big supporter of open peering with other network operators which is why we’re thrilled to be part of this initiative,” explains Juan van Zyl, Hetzner's data centre operations manager. “Deciding on a location for server hosting or to establish a network Point of Presence is an important decision for colocation customers and network operators. Hosting the first JINX multisite node reinforces Hetzner as a business enabler, offering seamless connectivity into JINX from within our Samrand Data Centre Park,” adds Mr Van Zyl.  

Internet exchange points enable ISPs to interconnect their networks so that domestic Internet users benefit from faster connections and more efficient access to online services. Network operators benefit from lower costs, resulting in more affordable bandwidth which is crucial for the development of the Internet.

Internet exchanges in South Africa have historically been limited to a single location requiring network operators using the exchange to invest in infrastructure connecting to that location. The extension of JINX makes it easy for Internet companies who already have infrastructure at the existing JINX location, to connect seamlessly to networks at the new locations. Peers at the new site will have the same peering experience and will be able to be directly linked to all existing and future JINX peers, with no additional complexity.

The Johannesburg exchange point has provided continuous, uninterrupted services to users since June 1996. Plans are underway to extend multisite capabilities to the Cape Town Internet Exchange.