Blizzard’s titles to see network peering in SA: possibly

At present, The NAPAfrica Internet Exchange is in active discussions with Blizzard. What about, you ask?

The discussions are about establishing network peering with Teraco’s points of presence in Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.

Peering is an “interconnection of different networks, which allows the connected networks to exchange traffic freely”.

What this means for us, is that ISP’s will be given direct access to Blizzard titles through NAPAfrica’s local Internet exchanges, meaning no more middle man routing.

Without this, an ISP requires a transit provider to route traffic to and from Blizzard’s network.

Transit providers are typically very costly as they charge ISP’s to route data through them and peering directly, having no additional charges to deal with, is a much more affordable solution for ISPs.

Michelle McCann, the head of business development, interconnection and peering at NAPAfrica, said Blizzard wouldn’t only examine and assess South Africa, but also will take a look at the whole sub-Saharan region.

McCann confirms that Blizzard is very keen for peering in our neck of the woods.

With an increase in local broadband penetration and gamers having access to higher internet speeds, peering is indeed a very viable option.

Unfortunately, all that it really means is a more affordable exchange of data for ISP’s and may not directly translate to any beneficial gains for gamers.