MIRA Project Boosts African Internet Resilience

The digital age has made reliable Internet access indispensable for education, commerce, healthcare, and governance. In Africa, where connectivity challenges persist, initiatives like the Measuring Internet Resilience in Africa (MIRA) project are pivotal. Launched as a partnership between the African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC) and the Internet Society, MIRA aims to quantify and elevate the continent’s Internet robustness through systematic data collection and analysis.

Understanding Internet Resilience in Context

Internet resilience refers to a network’s capacity to deliver consistent performance despite faults, overloads, or external disruptions. This includes maintaining speed, low delay, and uptime during cable cuts, power failures, or traffic surges. For African nations, resilience is crucial as Internet usage skyrocketed during the COVID-19 crisis, exposing vulnerabilities in infrastructure.

Many African countries rely on limited undersea cables and terrestrial links, making them susceptible to widespread outages. Power instability further compounds issues, often halting services entirely. MIRA addresses this by providing empirical evidence on these weaknesses, enabling targeted upgrades.

Core Goals of the MIRA Initiative

MIRA’s mission is multifaceted, focusing on data-driven improvements:

• Gather real-time metrics on throughput, latency, and availability from diverse locations.
• Expand measurement points to capture user-level experiences accurately.
• Share findings openly via platforms like Internet Society Pulse for stakeholders including regulators, operators, and citizens.
• Identify trends over time to track progress and predict risks.

By prioritizing home-based probes, MIRA ensures data reflects everyday user realities, not just enterprise networks.

Technical Foundations: MIRA Pods and Tools

At the heart of MIRA are compact Raspberry Pi devices known as MIRA Pods. These low-power units run specialized software to perform continuous tests:

• Throughput Tests: Measure download/upload speeds to gauge bandwidth capacity.
• Latency Checks: Assess round-trip times to global destinations, revealing routing efficiency.
• Availability Scans: Monitor uptime and detect outage patterns.

Initial deployments leverage partnerships with Measurement Lab (M-Lab) for baseline data and RIPE NCC’s Atlas for global context. Pods are strategically placed in nations like Benin, Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa, with plans for broader rollout.

This table highlights early focus areas, demonstrating MIRA’s phased approach.

Key Metrics for Comprehensive Assessment

MIRA evaluates resilience across multiple layers:

1. Physical Layer: Cable diversity, redundancy in fiber optics, and backup power systems. Single cable failures can isolate entire regions.
2. Network Layer: Peering at Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), ISP interconnections, and routing protocols.
3. Application Layer: DNS reliability, content delivery speeds, and service uptime from end-user views.
4. Market Dynamics: Competition levels influencing investment in robust infrastructure.

These metrics form a holistic Resilience Index, allowing comparisons between countries and benchmarking against global standards.

Challenges Facing African Internet Infrastructure

Africa’s digital ecosystem grapples with unique hurdles. Undersea cables landing in few points create chokepoints; a single cut can affect millions. Terrestrial fibers suffer from vandalism and environmental damage. Power grids, often unreliable, lack uninterruptible supplies at key nodes.

IXP penetration varies: South Africa boasts mature exchanges, while others lag, forcing expensive transit routes. DNS infrastructure, vital for navigation, shows inconsistencies in response times and failover capabilities. MIRA’s data illuminates these gaps, guiding investments.

Impact of Reliable Connectivity on Society

Strong Internet resilience fuels economic growth. Businesses depend on stable links for e-commerce and remote work. Education platforms thrive with low-latency access, bridging urban-rural divides. Healthcare telemedicine reduces travel burdens in remote areas.

Governments benefit from resilient networks for e-services and disaster response. During elections or crises, downtime erodes trust. MIRA’s insights empower policymakers to prioritize submarine cable protections, IXP expansions, and renewable energy backups.

Community Involvement and Expansion Plans

To scale effectively, MIRA calls for volunteers to host Pods on residential networks. These lightweight devices consume minimal bandwidth and power, offering hosts visibility into local performance. Hosting contributes to continental datasets, fostering collective improvement.

Future phases include more countries, advanced analytics like machine learning for outage prediction, and integration with regional forums. Collaborations with telecom regulators will translate data into policy.

Data Accessibility and Utilization

All MIRA findings are public on the Internet Society Pulse platform. Visual dashboards, APIs, and reports cater to experts and novices alike. Users can filter by country, metric, or timeframe, enabling custom analyses.

For instance, a network operator might spot peering bottlenecks, while a citizen tracks service quality trends. This transparency drives accountability, pressuring providers to enhance services.

Early Findings and Lessons Learned

Preliminary data reveals stark contrasts: coastal nations with multiple cable landings fare better than landlocked ones reliant on neighbors. Latency spikes correlate with peak hours, signaling capacity strains. DNS outages, though brief, disrupt services profoundly.

These insights validate MIRA’s approach, underscoring needs for diversified routes and local content hosting to cut latency.

Future Outlook for African Digital Resilience

With 5G rollouts and satellite constellations like Starlink emerging, Africa’s Internet landscape evolves rapidly. MIRA positions the continent to leverage these by identifying integration challenges. Long-term, a resilient backbone supports the African Continental Free Trade Area’s digital ambitions.

Sustained measurement will track Starlink’s impact on remote resilience and 5G’s urban densification effects. MIRA evolves into a benchmark for global South resilience efforts.

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