{"id":163759,"date":"2022-02-03T17:48:21","date_gmt":"2022-02-03T17:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.internetsociety.org\/?page_id=163759"},"modified":"2025-09-09T17:15:49","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T17:15:49","slug":"after-nearly-a-decade-bolivias-ixp-gets-a-boost","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.internetsociety.org\/issues\/ixps\/success-stories\/bolivia\/","title":{"rendered":"After Nearly a Decade, Bolivia\u2019s IXP Gets a Boost"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/span>\"Cables
\n
<\/div>
\n
<\/div>\n

After Nearly a Decade, Bolivia\u2019s IXP Gets a Boost<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
Download the Story<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

After several years of stagnation, Bolivia\u2019s Internet Exchange Point (IXP), PIT Bolivia, now doubles its exchanged traffic every six months.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n

Unlike the path taken to create many IXPs, Bolivia\u2019s was imposed rather than built by the community. It shows that it takes a human element, trust, to help IXPs soar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2011, Law 164<\/a> forced the country\u2019s Internet service providers (ISPs) to interconnect through an IXP, with regulations stipulated by Supreme Decree 1391<\/a> a year later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given its imposition, many operators were slow to trust or believe in the IXP\u2019s benefits, according to local experts. They couldn\u2019t even agree on a location. After more than a year of negotiations, it was finally housed at state-owned Entel, the country\u2019s main Internet service provider, because it had the necessary physical space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bolivia\u2019s IXP was born on 13 November 2013. Its members initially only exchanged 90 Megabits per second (Mbps) in total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause it wasn\u2019t created organically, the operators didn\u2019t take ownership,\u201d says Roberto Zambrana, former president of the Internet Society\u2019s Bolivia Chapter. \u201cThey are there because the law requires it, but they don\u2019t release all their traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lia Solis, current president of the Bolivia Chapter and networks manager at Entel, has a similar take. \u201cThe operators didn\u2019t see it as something that would benefit them. They met there but the interconnection rules weren\u2019t clear, so they did it with restrictive traffic.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

A Change of Venue<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

In 2016, the new executive director of Bolivia\u2019s Telecommunications and Transportation Regulation and Supervision Authority (ATT), decided to move the IXP from Entel to its own offices, seeing the regulator as a more neutral location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Carlos Sanabria, head of the ATT\u2019s ICT Unit at the time, says the change was only possible thanks to the Internet Society\u2019s support. \u201cThe IXP\u2019s first switch was donated by Internet Society. And for its change of venue to the ATT in 2016, Internet Society donated four switches and supported us to install an UPS [uninterruptible power supply].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He adds, \u201cThe Internet Society is like our angel. They see to it that things work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, as trust among the IXP members remained low, the volume of traffic they exchanged remained low, too. They also made little effort to attract new members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Internet Society began working on the Bolivian IXP in 2012 with the goal of creating trust among operators to make it profitable for all,\u201d says Christian O’Flaherty, the Internet Society\u2019s regional vice-president for Latin America and the Caribbean. \u201cA law can’t force the collaboration needed to make an IXP successful. That requires trust between Internet service-providers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Expanding Its Membership<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Today, most of PIT Bolivia\u2019s new members have joined on their own accord and through their own investments in an international connection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2017, Digital TV Cable Edmund, a medium-sized operator with some 35,000 residential clients in Santa Cruz, invested in laying fiber optic cable to obtain an international Internet connection in La Paz, some 855km away. It meant having to connect to the IXP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have noticed an increase in traffic. When we joined, we had 100 Mbps and now our traffic to the IXP has grown to 1 Gbps,\u201d says Daniel Guzm\u00e1n, Digital TV Cable Edmund\u2019s technical manager.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n
<\/div>\n\n\n\n
<\/span>\"Two
\n

Installation of the UPS.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

He says IXP content has grown alongside its membership, and the more it continues to grow, the more traffic and benefits there will be for everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, PIT Bolivia obtained legal status as a nonprofit entity\u2014an important step that created an institution independent of the government, allowing it to start making its own plans and projects. Still, the IXP wasn\u2019t looking to grow its membership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\n

Ricardo Veliz, founder of Vuela, an ISP that connected to the IXP in 2019, says the IXP is not functioning at full capacity because its board has conflicting interests and the government is yet to implement the multistakeholder approach to its governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He says in his experience, more than 80% of Internet traffic doesn\u2019t need to leave national territory. For this, the IXP needs to be the meeting point for the most popular content, including strictly Bolivian services, such as banking platforms, online tax services, or private software initiatives. He blames what he calls misguided regulation, aligned with the interests of operators that sell mobile Internet, for driving all this content across borders.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n
<\/div>
\n
<\/div>\n
<\/path><\/svg><\/span>
More than 80% of Internet traffic doesn\u2019t need to leave national territory.\u201d<\/div>