Exploring the African Internet Ecosystem

Supervisor: Dr Gareth Tyson

Research group(s): Networks

Africa has the fastest economic growth of any continent today. In line with this, rapid investments are being made in the regional Internet infrastructure. This means that it is evolving and expanding in unique ways, very different from the infrastructure seen in Europe. This PhD project will involve trying to measure and analyse how this infrastructure is changing, as well as how it differs from the infrastructure in other continents. This is of critical importance to help inform its future development. In this project, it will be necessary to design, develop and deploy "measurement software" across the world to collect meaningful data regarding Africa's network paths, server locations, websites, mobile technologies etc. Through this, the student will gain an expert understanding in how the Internet in Africa is deployed an operated. Using this expertise, the project will then progress to propose technologies and techniques to improve any issues found.