CAS­TRIES–Saint Lu­cia's In­ter­net users can look for­ward to bet­ter con­nec­tiv­i­ty and faster speeds be­tween lo­cal In­ter­net ser­vice providers (ISPs).

Dig­i­cel signed a mem­o­ran­dum of un­der­stand­ing on April 2, agree­ing to be­come the newest mem­ber of the Saint Lu­cia In­ter­net ex­change (SLiX). Dig­i­cel joins its com­peti­tors FLOW and LIME, found­ing mem­bers of SLiX, in an ini­tia­tive de­signed to im­prove the re­li­a­bil­i­ty of the In­ter­net in St Lu­cia.

The three ISPs met last March at the Min­istry of Pub­lic Ser­vice, In­for­ma­tion and Broad­cast­ing to dis­cuss the pos­si­bil­i­ty of Dig­i­cel join­ing the lo­cal In­ter­net ex­change. That meet­ing end­ed with a unan­i­mous vote, clear­ing the way for Saint Lu­cia to be­come the first Caribbean ter­ri­to­ry where Dig­i­cel is par­tic­i­pat­ing in a lo­cal IXP. With the three telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­nies peer­ing at SLiX, their net­works will in­ter­con­nect di­rect­ly, rather than through a third par­ty in a for­eign ter­ri­to­ry.

That trans­lates to faster con­nec­tiv­i­ty for cus­tomers, and low­er op­er­at­ing costs to the In­ter­net ser­vice providers, ex­plained Christo­pher Roberts, Project Co­or­di­na­tor for the Caribbean Re­gion­al Com­mu­ni­ca­tions In­fra­struc­ture Pro­gramme (CAR­CIP) in Saint Lu­cia.

"With­out a lo­cal IXP, for ex­am­ple, e-mail sent from a cus­tomer on one St Lu­cian ISP to a cus­tomer of an­oth­er St Lu­cian ISP would have to trav­el all the way to an IXP in the USA be­fore re­turn­ing to Saint Lu­cia. The in­volve­ment of that fa­cil­i­ty in the USA is ex­pen­sive, could re­sult in de­lays, and could re­sult in some­one or some for­eign gov­ern­ment in­spect­ing your da­ta," Roberts said.

"With the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the SLiX, that da­ta now trav­els from a lo­cal sender to a lo­cal re­cip­i­ent with­out ever hav­ing to leave Saint Lu­cia. The ben­e­fits are faster de­liv­ery times and re­duced cost, be­cause that un­nec­es­sar­i­ly longer trip has now been elim­i­nat­ed."

SLiX was launched in Feb­ru­ary 2014, with sup­port from Pack­et Clear­ing House, the world's lead­ing im­ple­men­ta­tion of In­ter­net ex­change points or IX­Ps. Bevil Wood­ing, In­ter­net Strate­gist with PCH, said, "Giv­en the con­sol­i­da­tion cur­rent­ly be­ing wit­nessed in the Caribbean tele­com sec­tor, Dig­i­cel's par­tic­i­pa­tion in SLiX is an im­por­tant mile­stone for the re­gion. It proves that com­peti­tors in the space can col­lab­o­rate on ar­eas of mu­tu­al ben­e­fit for their busi­ness and their cus­tomers. SLiX is al­ready one of the fastest grow­ing IX­Ps in the re­gion, and Dig­i­cel's in­clu­sion will on­ly help make it even bet­ter for Lo­cal In­ter­net users."

The growth of the SLiX is part of the wider on­go­ing ef­fort by the Saint Lu­cia gov­ern­ment to sup­port the In­ter­net-based eco­nom­ic growth, un­der the um­brel­la of CAR­CIP. Fund­ed by the In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment As­so­ci­a­tion of the World Bank and co­or­di­nat­ed by the Caribbean Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Union, CAR­CIP seeks to help gov­ern­ments and pri­vate sec­tor to har­monise the de­vel­op­ment of crit­i­cal telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions in­fra­struc­ture across three par­tic­i­pat­ing East­ern Caribbean coun­tries–Saint Lu­cia, Grena­da, and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

The SLiX im­ple­men­ta­tion was al­so sup­port­ed by the en­gi­neers from the Caribbean Net­work Op­er­a­tors Group (CaribNOG), which will host its next re­gion­al meet­ing in St Lu­cia at the end of April, to con­tin­ue its work in train­ing net­work en­gi­neers to sup­port IX­Ps and oth­er crit­i­cal in­ter­net in­fra­struc­ture.

Stephen Lee, a found­ing mem­ber of CaribNOG, said, "It is good to see ISPs in the re­gion sup­port­ing lo­cal traf­fic ex­change through IX­Ps. CaribNOG has been work­ing with PCH to sup­port IXP pro­lif­er­a­tion across the re­gion and those ef­forts are now bear­ing fruit."

The Saint Lu­cia ex­change is one of nine IX­Ps in the Caribbean. Oth­er ac­tive IX­PS are lo­cat­ed in Bar­ba­dos, Cu­ra­cao, Grena­da, Haiti, Ja­maica, St Maarten, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, and Trinidad and To­ba­go. Be­lize and St Kitts and Nevis are ex­pect­ed to be the next coun­tries to es­tab­lish IX­Ps soon.

The up­com­ing Caribbean Peer­ing and In­ter­con­nec­tion Fo­rum will bring all the re­gion's IX­Ps to­geth­er to share ex­pe­ri­ence and forge new re­la­tion­ships with in­ter­na­tion­al con­tent providers. That meet­ing takes place in Bar­ba­dos in May.