Systel, a leading telecommunications and network services provider in Kenya, has become the first provider to enable the Microsoft Azure Peering Service (MAPS) at LINX Nairobi, the interconnection hub operated by the London Internet Exchange (LINX).
LINX Nairobi is the first footprint in Africa for the Internet Exchange Point (IXP) and was launched in November 2023 to facilitate future-proof interconnection services for the fast growing East African ecosystem.
The introduction of MAPS earlier this month at LINX Nairobi follows a healthy first year for the IXP, having welcomed a healthy selection of local ISPs and as well as global carriers and much anticipated content delivery networks like Meta to the exchange.
Providing broadband services to homes and businesses in Nairobi, Systel are no stranger to peering and operating a resilient and redundant network strategy.
With the integration of MAPS, Systel will benefit from low-latency performance for their end user usage of services like Microsoft365, Dynamics365, Teams or any other Microsoft service accessible with the public internet.
Mathew from Systel commented;
“Leveraging LINX services, our customers are assured of high quality, low latency services. With the addition of LINX and MAPS to our network, we are reinforcing our commitment to a reliable connection for our customers”
MAPS is a unique service that LINX offer as an official partner of Microsoft, allowing networks to improve connectivity via a direct route to Microsoft (AS8075) with no minimum traffic levels required.
Mike Hellers, Product Development Manager for LINX commented;
“LINX MAPS is becoming a very popular service for us in the UK for networks in the enterprise and public sector industries. We are thrilled to be able to launch this service only this month in Nairobi and already we have Systel adopting this solution in their networking strategy. It’s a unique service that the local ISPs here can really take advantage of as it requires no minimum traffic levels and it can be incorporated alongside other LINX services like peering, through one of our multi-service ports.”
Systel Network’s pioneering step with LINX Nairobi and MAPS is a promising example of their commitment to delivering enhanced connectivity, greater reliability, and improved cloud performance for their customers across Nairobi.