IXDO Project: An Internet Exchange Point in the Dominican Republic

For more than a decade, different organizations from civil society and the private sector have been involved in efforts to establish an Internet Exchange Point (IXP) in the Dominican Republic, with no success. Possible causes were either lack of interest at the time, the maturity level of the ICT sector, or even lack of financial support. The Internet Society Dominican Republic Chapter decided to discuss those outcomes with different stakeholders and promote an atmosphere to proceed when the moment was right.

Among efforts from the past, it is important to mention two of them, which made important advances: (1) the datacenter firm NAP del Caribe (NDC), invited interested local Internet Service Providers (ISP) to establish either an IXP or private peering; (2) the academic sector worked to establish a local research network, Red de Avanzada Dominicana de Estudio e Investigación (RADEI), which sought the support of the local regulator Instituto Dominicano de las Telecomunicaciones (INDOTEL).

In 2017, the Internet Society Chapter Dominican Republic (ISOC-DO) board, after considering past efforts and brainstorming on different approaches to succeed in the IXDO initiative, taking inspiration on the regional trends, and locating experts to support our goal, decided to design the annual Continue reading