. IXPN seeks sustenance, rallies sector for more growth
Nigeria has achieved one terabit per second Internet traffic (1Tbps), ranking it first in West Africa and second in Africa after South Africa, which boasts 4Tbps online traffic.
The 1Tbps was attained in April, according to the Internet eXchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), the body that promotes seamless connectivity and innovation with the peering community.
Recall that the traffic was 900GB/s in December 2024 before crossing the 1Tbps mark four months later. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) said as of January 2025, Nigerians consumed 1,000,930.60 terabits of data.
This 1Tbps attainment implies that there has been an extremely high data transfer rate in the country’s Internet space, with an immense amount of bandwidth usage.
Giving more details on this achievement yesterday in Lagos, the Chief Executive Officer of IXPN, Muhammed Rudman, said the 1Tbps is a game changer for Nigeria, explaining that mega video calls, social media content, streaming services, and the influx of data centres have helped in achieving this.
Rudman said a speed of 1Tbps supports over one million concurrent Zoom calls, allowing students, entrepreneurs, and professionals to connect and drive Nigeria’s digital revolution, saying this has been impactful.
“With 1Tbps, more than 200,000 people can stream HD Nollywood films or movies on Netflix simultaneously without any buffering or interruptions.
“This speed enables the transfer of the entire contents of 50,000 smartphones—including photos, apps, and videos—in just one second,” he stated.
According to him, for Nigeria, hitting this milestone means reducing reliance on international bandwidth, decreasing latency for local services, and strengthening our position as Africa’s digital heartbeat. He said this milestone is a testament to the power of collaboration, innovation, and the relentless pursuit of a faster, more connected Nigeria.
Rudman said IXPN was set up to keep Nigerian Internet traffic within the country, domesticate local traffic, and reduce costs associated with accessing local Internet content, thereby enhancing local connectivity and improving the overall Internet experience for the end users, while promoting and encouraging the creation of local content and serving as an efficient centralised launch point for services.
“In 2008, the Internet traffic generated in Nigeria was between seven and eight megabits per second, and some of the traffic that was domesticated at that time was from Zenith Registries and from a few organisations that had content.
“Although the traffic as of then was very minimal, it kept increasing, until Google peered with IXPN, and the Internet traffic jumped from less than 20 megabits per second to 120 megabits per second, and by 2012, the traffic had increased to 600 megabits per second. In 2019, Internet traffic further increased to 125 gigabits per second. In 2021, it reached 250 gigabits per second, and by December 2024, Internet traffic in Nigeria reached 900 gigabits per second. Today, we have attained 1Tbps.
“Based on our current survey, 75 per cent of our members said that they were exchanging above 25 per cent of their traffic locally, while about four per cent said they were exchanging above 75 per cent of their traffic locally. So, the objective is to ensure that we domesticate our Internet and make it cheaper,” he stated.
To sustain this growth, the IXPN boss advocated a drop in transmission cost, adding that the private sector must be empowered to foster more growth.
Besides, Rudman called for cheaper interconnectivity costs across Nigeria, stressing that Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which are struggling, need incentives to stay afloat and expand services.
