In Lagos, the bustling city that anchors Nigeria’s digital economy, the mood at the Africa Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF 2025) was electric.
On stage sat a powerhouse panel: Meta, Open Access Data Centres, Airtel Africa, Digital Realty, Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), and TeleGeography, all with one mission: to unlock faster, more reliable content delivery for millions of Nigerians.
The session, aptly titled “Content at the Edge: Unlocking Faster and More Reliable Experiences”, followed a keynote by Meta’s Michelle Opiyo, who spotlighted the company’s growing edge infrastructure across Africa. From there, the discussion unraveled into an honest look at Nigeria’s unique challenges—and its immense opportunities.
Nigeria’s Demographic Advantage
Meta’s Ben Ryall painted the big picture: “Nigeria is Africa’s largest country by population, and its youth are hungry for content. The split between enterprise demand and young content-driven consumers is a goldmine for local CDNs and tailored strategies.”
The Bottlenecks: Pricing and Distribution
But the road isn’t smooth. IXPN’s Muhammed Rudman recalled early conversations with Netflix: “Back in 2007, they didn’t see the ROI. Today, subsea cables have brought traffic to Lagos, but outside the city, costs are still too high.”
In Lagos, bandwidth can be as cheap as $1 per Mbps, but beyond the city limits, the price jumps to around $30. For Digital Realty’s Ikechukwu Nnamani, this mismatch is a Catch-22: “The market won’t mature without investment, but investors want to see maturity first.”
Rethinking Models: From Sachets to Ecosystems
Dr. Ayotunde Coker, CEO of Open Access Data Centres, challenged the industry to embrace Africa’s informal economy with “sachet pricing”, daily or weekly data access.
He also noted that colocation facilities are evolving: “We’re building ecosystems where creators, carriers, and CDNs meet, not just renting out power and space.”
Fiber Cuts and the Latency Dilemma
Still, Nigeria’s fragile infrastructure looms large. In just 18 months, 13,000 fibre cuts were recorded, according to data shared at the forum.
MTN already runs 25,000km of fibre, while government plans to push that to 90,000km, but more fibre also means more exposure to disruption.
Rudman warned that Lagos alone cannot bear Nigeria’s digital load: “If your game downloads are only cached in Lagos, users in Kano will still suffer. We have to go inward.”
Expanding the Edge
Meta is already taking that advice to heart. Beyond its Lagos Point of Presence (PoP), the company is building a second PoP in Port Harcourt to serve the South-South. IXPN, too, is preparing to expand interconnection deeper into the regions, urging mobile operators to peer beyond Lagos.
A Call for Collaboration
The session closed on a note of unity. The panelists agreed: infrastructure is coming, but it won’t be enough without coordinated investment, ecosystem collaboration, and regulatory support.
“This is more than fibre and data centres,” Nnamani concluded. “This is about bringing content closer to the people. The hyperscalers, the platforms, the carriers, it’s time for all of us to step up together.”
The 15th edition of AfPIF ended with optimism, but also a challenge: Nigeria’s digital future won’t be built by one player alone. The edge must be conquered, together.
