Sometimes it is regulation that moves the market forward faster. Pakistan has just shown the way: from now on, every telecoms operator must route its local traffic through an IXP.
The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) has just published its new regulations on local peering and Internet exchange points: the IXP Regulations 2026.
Sending local traffic on a round trip abroad is costly, slow, and exposed to security risks linked to foreign transit points.
And yet that was the reality until now.
By making this peering mandatory, the PTA is tackling three problems at once: operators’ operational costs, quality of service for users, and the sovereignty of national traffic.
And here is how they have implemented and framed it:
- physical connections must use fibre;
- operators are required to use the BGP protocol for routing;
- CDNs must operate within the IXP framework;
- governance committees may be set up to oversee operations and guarantee fair access for all participants.
Pakistan’s case is not an isolated one. More and more emerging countries are realising what is at stake and are taking action through regulation when the market is not moving fast enough.
In Europe, local peering has grown through conviction and economic benefits. But the question deserves to be asked: do our regulatory frameworks encourage this approach enough? Or are we still letting too much European traffic pass through an uncontrolled number of devices?
Why peering?
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