Sustainability and Strengthening of LIXPA

On March 3, 2015 the Internet Service Providers (ISP) and the Internet Society Liberia Chapter (ISOC) signed an Article of Incorporation and Peering Agreement for the establishment of Liberia Internet Exchange Point Association (LIXPA). (See attachment)

Engineers from all GSM companies and Cable Consortium of Liberia (CCL) were designated to work immediately and prepare for the IXP Hosting at CCL. These engineers worked to understand Space requirement, size of rack, wiring, Backhauling, Minimum router spec and configuration. An IP address was attained from AFRINIC to host clients on the IXP.

The Liberia internet Exchange Points was officially launched on August 6, 2015 with the Vice President of Liberia serving as key note speaker. The program was graced by CEOs and DCEOs of GSM companies, Senators and Representatives committees on Telecommunications, Ministers of Post and Telecommunications and the Board of Commissioners of the Liberia Telecommunications Authority.

Since the Launching of the IXP, LIXPA have attracted other ISPs in and out of Liberia. By June 2018, search giant GOOGLE cached at the Liberia Internet Exchange Point. Some smaller ISP’s have also been attracted to LIXPA.

All peering parties and ISOC- Liberia Chapter have signed a comprehensive By-law and Constitution to help with the management of LIXPA. (See attachment)

Top Object

Major objectives of LIXPA are:

Ø The proper management of LIXPA through coordination and cooperation from all stakeholders in telecommunications sector of Liberia.

Ø Raise additional revenues while simultaneously speeding local data exchange, and most importantly;

Ø Encouraging the development of locally hosted content and services.

o Locally hosted content and services cannot be developed in the absence of Liberia Country Code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) (lr.).

o Acquiring .lr domain name is a serious challenge which most local enterprises are not prepare to undergo thereby swaying to generic Domain Names. (.com, .net , .org)

Challenges

Major challenges facing LIXP are:

Ø Getting peering parties to commit to resolving liabilities for the viability and sustainability of the IXP.

Ø Getting peering parties key decision makers to attend meetings that would strengthen the management of the IXP.

Ø Getting peering parties to agree to procure needed equipment for the betterment of the IXP. Ex. Stats Server for tracking user usage, and genuine Bandwidth Management tool which gives opportunity to monitor the peering switch traffic.

Ø Content currently on the IXP is low or no existent.

Recommendation

Ø Carrying out awareness on the importance of the IXP; there are limited or no awareness of an IXP in Liberia

Ø Involve more key stakeholders

Ø LIXP should have full time management staff (skeleton staff)

Ø Regulator (LTA) should play more active role than monitoring to help enforcement the governance of the IXP.

Conclusion

LTA, the Regulatory Authority has been playing de-facto management role in the absence of a governance structure regarding LIXPA. With the By-law and Constitution which defines the management structure in place, the transitional plan is to transfer management responsibility to an interim management team.

The task of the interim team is to facilitate election among LIXPA among members. This exercise is expected to take place in the next four (4) months. Following that, LTA will be playing only advisory role.

Induction Ceremony of LIXPA

The induction ceremony at Mamba Point Hotel of LIXPA was attended by the President of ISOC Liberia, making remarks, he emphasized on the need of low cost to internet to enable the connection of the unconnected. Liberia internet exchange point association (LIXPA) officials elected (MTN, chair, K3, vice chair, Powernet, SG, and Libtelco, Treasurer). Program marked the Certification & Induction of the newly elected Officials of the Liberia Internet Exchange Point Association (LIXPA). The program was hosted on November 19, 2020.

Internet School of Governance Webinar - Day 1

The Liberia National Internet Governance Forum will play a pivotal role in enhancing public participation in public policy development in Liberia. The National Internet Governance forum in many parts of the World has not only introduced new forms of ensuring public participation such as remote participation with the support of International organizations such as the Internet Society and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and numbers which have equally been embraced by the government, private sector, technical community academia and media, it has also built the capacity of many actors from diverse areas in the private sector, civil society, academia and the media on how to engage with other stakeholders in public policy development processes through a multi stakeholder approach. It is for this reason that the Liberia School of Internet Governance was conceptualized to bring new voices into the Internet Governance debate.

1st Presenter - Internet Governance 101.pdf

2nd Presenter - Legal issues of Internet governance.pdf

3rd Presenter - History overview of the Internet & IG.pdf

Internet School of Governance In-Person - Day 2

The Liberia National Internet Governance Forum will play a pivotal role in enhancing public participation in public policy development in Liberia. The National Internet Governance forum in many parts of the World has not only introduced new forms of ensuring public participation such as remote participation with the support of International organizations such as the Internet Society and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and numbers which have equally been embraced by the government, private sector, technical community academia and media, it has also built the capacity of many actors from diverse areas in the private sector, civil society, academia and the media on how to engage with other stakeholders in public policy development processes through a multi stakeholder approach. It is for this reason that the Liberia School of Internet Governance was conceptualized to bring new voices into the Internet Governance debate.

1st Presenter - Economic Development Aspect IG.pdf

2nd Presenter - The Internet Addressing System.pdf

3rd Presenter - Diplomacy and Multi-Stakeholder.pdf

3rd Presenter -State of Internet Access & Infrastructure in Liberia.pdf

4th Presenter -Borader mapping of IG and the Institutional Ecosystem.pdf

Day 2 Videos of Presenters

Internet Society Liberia Chapter Webinar - Day 1

Throughout our lives, we are using devices that take us online, transact business, communicate with people, share data, do video processing, do our jobs, and even connect other devices to communicate with each other. In contrast, other people in our society do not have the means to communicate through similar devices due to either inability to acquire them or lack of purchasing power to data for internet access. The connection of these people is also important to form a part of sharing the same experience of those having the possibilities for connectivity to access information and share. There is also a need for internet service providers (ISPs) to focus on end-users data protection. ISPs should play a positive role in protecting end-users ' information and communication.

Listen to Day 1 audio

1st Presenter - Misinformation/Disinformation.pdf

2nd Presenter - Internet Governance.pdf

Internet Society Liberia Chapter Webinar - Day 2

Throughout our lives, we are using devices that take us online, transact business, communicate with people, share data, do video processing, do our jobs, and even connect other devices to communicate with each other. In contrast, other people in our society do not have the means to communicate through similar devices due to either inability to acquire them or lack of purchasing power to data for internet access. The connection of these people is also important to form a part of sharing the same experience of those having the possibilities for connectivity to access information and share. There is also a need for internet service providers (ISPs) to focus on end-users data protection. ISPs should play a positive role in protecting end-users ' information and communication.

Listen to Day 2 audio

1st Presenter - Cyber Security.pdf

2nd Presenter - Community Network.pdf

Powerpoint presentation containing video, explaining the importance of establishing a community network.