Umuahia. October 21, 2007. The Office of the National Security Adviser has intervened to broker peace in another landmark row over control of Nigeria 's Internet space that has pitted Interstella Communications Limited, a licensee for Internet Exchange Point (IXP) against the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), the telecoms regulator, over the former's bid to be the exclusive carrier of Internet traffic in the country.

Interstella is claiming N10 billion in a landmark suit filed against NCC and other government agencies including the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Nigeria Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and Galaxy Backbone Plc over alleged breach of service exclusivity granted the company.

MAY GOD HELP US IN THIS COUNTRY

ehie007:

If Obasanjo was still in power i believe he would av succomed to the monopoly.

Thank God for Yaradua.

Emmay:

Na wa O!!!! If men were GOD!,

mmonwuba:

if man were God, oxygen would have totally been monopolized and paid for, no oxygen for common man be that.

BekinableG:

May God punish those that want to take the whole country astray and of course block their chances s of even getting their daily bread. AMEN
imaging!!!!!!!!!!
it will simply not work for them in God's name all this access that even we student and average or poor people have they want to deprive us of them. tofiakwa! they should not forget we are practicing mixes economic socialism & capitalism we have all the right to compete and the right of ownership.
they should monopolize them selves no our gateway.

nwando:

Some would cut off some peoples oxygen supply and replace it with carbon monoxide.

Seun:
A Nigerian company known as "Galaxy Backbone Plc Interstella Communications Limited", a licensee for the Internet Exchange Point, is suing the government of Nigeria for not allowing them to monopolize the Internet. They want all the Internet traffic in this country to flow through the so-called Internet Exchange Point and be controlled by them alone:


Source: http://www.technologytimesng.com/post/nsa-intervenes-in-row-over-nigeria-s-internet-exchange-point

This is unbelievable stupid, but if the government is stupid enough to bow to their demand:
- Any time their network is down, the Internet will be unavailable throughout Nigeria.
- Nigeria will be like China with no more free access to information. A big brother nation:
- Any website they block will be blocked throughout the country. E.g. political opponents, competitors, etc.
- The total bandwidth available throughout the country will be the bandwidth available at the exchange.
- In a short time, they can begin to block popular websites unless the owners pay them some money.

It's unbelievably stupid because the whole idea of the Internet is that there is no "exclusive carrier of Internet traffic" except in brutal police states like China and sharia countries. The Internet is designed to be reliable through redundancy. If a router goes down, you can route around it. If your ISP is down, you can go to a cyber-cafe and access the net through a VSAT. Or you can go through a different ISP. If MTN GPRS has problems, you can try Glo. Now imagine all ISPs having to route their US or UK-bound traffic through one Nigerian network. Horrible idea!

As a webmaster whose daily bread depends on the vibrancy of the Nigerian Internet Service Industry, this idea is a really bad nightmare. It means that as a webmaster you can lose all your traffic forever if you have a quarrel with an employee of the Internet Exchange Point. Or if you speak against them in any way. Absolute power corrupts.

One of the beautiful things about the Internet is that nobody is absolutely in control. Because of this, competition is fierce and there is rapid progress. These people are enemies of progress, and they must be stopped. If they want us to use their Internet Exchance Point, let them provide us with a compelling reason to do so. I have been a subscriber of an ISP for several years, and it was not by force. It was because I saw value in them. Thanks a million.