Pakistan is soon going to setup its first internet exchange point for all local ISPs that will help reduce latency rates for domestic traffic with-in the country to a greater deal, we have checked with sources.

Under the headship of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority and in collaboration with Internet Society (ISOC), this Internet Exchange Point will be located in Islamabad for which hardware is currently being setup and exchange is likely to go live with-in next two months.

Majority of ISPs, including PTCL, are already on-board while discussions with remaining ISPs of Pakistan are under way to make sure that all domestic internet traffic goes through this Internet Exchange Point.

For those who aren’t familiar, an Internet Exchange Point is used to exchange local internet traffic internally with-in the country between ISPs instead of looking-up international exchanges and networks.

Currently if you are sitting on PTCL and if a ping is sent for a website/server that is hosted on TransWorld for example, then traffic is routed through international exchanges that reside outside Pakistan.

Such an internet request, which is local — and distance between client and server could be just few kilometers — has to travel the all way to an exchange that’s hosted abroad and then will hit back local server after travelling thousands of kilometers, increasing latency rates and decreasing data transfer rates.

ISPs readiness — in terms of hardware and software — for joining this exchange is already there and there’s nothing much technical that’s required on ISP’s part to join the local internet exchange.

This internet exchange is going to help local hosting companies, data centers, service providers, banks, corporations and everyone who is hosting websites/services locally with-in Pakistan. It will also benefit ISPs greatly by not only enhancing their performance but also by reducing their bandwidth costs.

As mentioned above, this internet exchange is likely to be active and running with-in two months. We will update our readers when there’s any further development on this.