Sending something from Johannesburg to Durban via London sounds a bit silly. It would cost a lot more and take longer than sending it directly. Yet this indirect sending is what happens on most of the internet, and it makes access slower and costlier than it has to be.

At the third African Peering and Interconnection Forum (AfPIF3) in August last year, Bill Norton, a recognised expert on peering, explained that there are only two methods of connecting between the networks that make up the internet as we know it. On the YouTube clip of one of his conference sessions, he says the first is called ‘internet transit’, and the second ‘internet peering’.