IXPs don’t make the headlines. Yet in 40 out of 50 countries, their development has cut the cost of the internet by 10% to 70%. Here is what lies behind local peering.
The Internet Society has just published a study documenting something we know intuitively in our sector but struggle to prove: local peering changes end users’ lives.
They analysed how the cost of the internet evolved in 50 countries that received support for IXP development between 2020 and 2024.
In 2020, a resident of Burkina Faso had to spend 13% of their average income on a basic mobile plan. By 2025, that figure had fallen to 0.2%.
And it is not an isolated case!
In Uganda and Kenya, the cost fell by more than 70%. In Haiti by 78%, in the Dominican Republic by more than 65%.
When local operators, content providers and businesses exchange their traffic directly through an IXP (without going through international transit providers), routing costs fall. And when infrastructure costs fall, access providers can pass these savings on to their subscribers.
In France, the issue is not affordability in the economic sense. But the mechanisms are the same: keeping traffic in France through local IXPs reduces the kilometres travelled by data packets, which cuts transport costs and improves latency, and also strengthens resilience.
And ultimately, it maintains a more sovereign and more efficient Internet ecosystem.
As the Internet Society puts it: the success of an IXP depends on community commitment and an enabling environment, with policies that encourage local hosting, support digital payments, protect data and foster competition.
That is exactly the model France-IX has embodied for 16 years: neutral, and serving the ecosystem.
Why peering?
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