Ger­ard Best

Some­times the best so­lu­tion to a tech­ni­cal prob­lem is so­cial en­gi­neer­ing. Af­ter a jour­ney of two years, that's ex­act­ly how Be­lize has come to a ma­jor mile­stone in its tech­no­log­i­cal de­vel­op­ment.

The coun­try's In­ter­net ser­vice providers (ISPs) have com­mit­ted to set up Be­lize's first-ever In­ter­net ex­change point (IXP), a piece of crit­i­cal In­ter­net in­fra­struc­ture through which they can ex­change lo­cal In­ter­net traf­fic be­tween their net­works. The process was as sim­ple–and as dif­fi­cult–as get­ting nine In­ter­net ser­vice providers (ISPs), all fierce com­peti­tors, to agree to work to­geth­er for the greater good.

Be­lize Tele­me­dia, Speed­net, Broad­Band Be­lize, and Net­work So­lu­tions signed the his­toric agree­ment on April 16 at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Be­lize's (UB) Be­lize City cam­pus, clear­ing the way for the es­tab­lish­ment of the re­gion's lat­est IXP, called Be­lize IX or BIX.

"As with all things im­por­tant and mean­ing­ful, it was not an easy task to get to this point. How­ev­er, the jour­ney of the ne­go­ti­at­ing the path­way to this agree­ment for the Be­lize In­ter­net ex­change (BIX) was in in­deed re­ward­ing," said Michael Kong, own­er and CEO at NetK­ing So­lu­tions, who spoke at the sign­ing on be­half of the ISPs.

Oth­er sig­na­tures to the mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing (MOU) in­clude Cen­taur Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Cor­po­ra­tion, Al­liance IP Be­lize and NetK­ing So­lu­tions.

"I speak on be­half of all providers when I say that de­ter­mined team ef­fort and col­lab­o­ra­tion for the greater good made this his­toric day a re­al­i­ty. We can all be hap­py and proud to know we are part of a mile­stone that will go down in ICT his­to­ry in Be­lize," Kong said.

The agree­ment marks a sig­nif­i­cant mo­ment for Be­lize. It is the first time that the coun­try's ISPs put aside their dif­fer­ences to work to­geth­er to ad­dress a chal­lenge that af­fects them all–band­width.

"The up­com­ing launch of BIX will put an end to a cost­ly and in­ef­fi­cient sit­u­a­tion where­by da­ta and ac­cess to oth­er crit­i­cal lo­cal ser­vices has to be rout­ed in­ter­na­tion­al­ly just to get back to a lo­cal cus­tomer, who could be on­ly a few feet away from the per­son who sent it. In oth­er words, we were us­ing ex­pen­sive in­ter­na­tion­al In­ter­net con­nec­tions to ex­change do­mes­tic traf­fic," said Bevil Wood­ing, In­ter­net strate­gist with in­ter­na­tion­al non-prof­it Pack­et Clear­ing House, speak­ing in an in­ter­view fol­low­ing the sign­ing.

Pack­et Clear­ing House, a non-prof­it or­gan­i­sa­tion, plays a key role in im­ple­ment­ing IX­Ps around the world. In the Caribbean, Wood­ing and his team have worked close­ly with the Caribbean Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union, reg­u­la­tors and lo­cal ISPs to set up IX­Ps across the re­gion.

Faster Net

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, lo­cal in­ter­net traf­fic would need to leave Be­lize to an ISP in the Unit­ed States and then get rerout­ed back to Be­lize. Once BIX is set up, that lo­cal traf­fic will no longer have to leave the coun­try. That means bet­ter speeds for lo­cal In­ter­net users.

Es­tab­lish­ing a lo­cal IXP brings ben­e­fits not on­ly to lo­cal con­sumers but al­so to the ISPs' bot­tom line, Wood­ing ex­plained.

"A lo­cal IXP im­proves the qual­i­ty and cost ef­fec­tive­ness of de­liv­er­ing lo­cal In­ter­net-en­abled ser­vices to cit­i­zens and busi­ness­es. That's a ma­jor ben­e­fit for lo­cal ISPs. The IXP al­so en­ables new forms of lo­cal in­no­va­tion and en­tre­pre­neur­ship, as In­ter­net users ben­e­fit from greater op­por­tu­ni­ties for e-com­merce and lo­cal con­tent de­vel­op­ment, in­clud­ing on­line ed­u­ca­tion."

Alan Slush­er, Pres­i­dent of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Be­lize, said the uni­ver­si­ty "is look­ing for­ward to great­ly ex­pand­ing its ca­pac­i­ty to de­liv­er train­ing across the length and breadth of the coun­try and di­rect­ly in­to the homes and work­places of our work peo­ple. Thus great­ly re­duc­ing the costs of ed­u­ca­tion while ex­pand­ing its avail­abil­i­ty. We are look­ing for a great leap for­ward as a re­sult of this cor­po­ra­tion."

The soon-to-be es­tab­lished IXP will not on­ly ad­dress the in­ef­fi­cien­cy of lo­cal In­ter­net traf­fic ex­change. It will al­so al­low oth­er im­por­tant In­ter­net in­fra­struc­ture to be lo­cat­ed in Be­lize, such as do­main name root ser­vices and con­tent de­liv­ery caches from ma­jor con­tent net­works like Google, Net­flix and Ya­hoo.

Roo­sevelt Blades, chair of the ISP work­ing group, is al­ready look­ing ahead. He an­nounced at the sign­ing there are plans to have a sim­i­lar fa­cil­i­ty built in Bel­mopan, once the Be­lize City IX is up and run­ning.

Tech­ni­cal dis­cus­sions about how to set up the IX­P­start­ed two years ago, with a work­ing group that in­clud­ed ISPs, the Be­lize Pub­lic Util­i­ties Com­mis­sion, gov­ern­ment min­istries, Pack­et Clear­ing House with sup­port from oth­er re­gion­al stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the Caribbean Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union, and the Caribbean Net­work Op­er­a­tors Group (CaribNOG).

Speak­ing at an Oc­to­ber 2013 CaribNOG event at which the plans to es­tab­lish BIX were an­nounced, Kings­ley Smith, then Di­rec­tor of Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions at the Be­lize Pub­lic Util­i­ties Com­mis­sion said, "This de­vel­op­ment is ex­pect­ed to pro­vide sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits to lo­cal ISPs and the In­ter­net users in Be­lize."

With the sign­ing fi­nal­ly be­com­ing a re­al­i­ty, Be­lizean In­ter­net users are one step clos­er to a faster, stronger and more se­cure In­ter­net.

(Oth­er sources:7News)