e-Infrastructure and e-Services. 7th International Conference, AFRICOMM 2015, Cotonou, Benin, December 15-16, 2015, Revised Selected Papers

Research Article

On the Internet Connectivity in Africa

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  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-319-43696-8_8,
        author={Assane Gueye and Peter Mell and Desire Banse and Faical Congo},
        title={On the Internet Connectivity in Africa},
        proceedings={e-Infrastructure and e-Services. 7th International Conference, AFRICOMM 2015, Cotonou, Benin, December 15-16, 2015, Revised Selected Papers},
        proceedings_a={AFRICOMM},
        year={2017},
        month={1},
        keywords={Africa Internet Connectivity Measurement
    },
        doi={10.1007/978-3-319-43696-8_8}
    }
    
  • Assane Gueye
    Peter Mell
    Desire Banse
    Faical Congo
    Year: 2017
    On the Internet Connectivity in Africa
    AFRICOMM
    Springer
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-43696-8_8
Assane Gueye1,*, Peter Mell2,*, Desire Banse2,*, Faical Congo2,*
  • 1: University of Maryland
  • 2: National Institute of Standards and Technology
*Contact email: agueye@umd.edu, peter.mell@nist.gov, desire.banse@nist.gov, faical.congo@nist.gov

Abstract

This study measures growth of Internet connectivity in Africa from 2010 to 2014 with a focus on inter-country relationships. An initial analysis reveals a modest increase in the number of participating countries but an explosive increase in the number of routers and network links. We then form the first country level topology maps of the African Internet and evaluate the robustness of the network. We study raw connectivity, pairwise shortest paths, and betweeness centrality, suggesting how improvements can be made to the inter-country African connectivity to enhance its robustness without reliance on paths traversing multiple continents.