Draft Theme: “Cameroon IPTV Project: Multicasting 34 TV Channels into Domestic IXP Points of Presence (POPs) through CAMDTV; in order to keep local the domestic traffic”

• Context, Terminology, and Rationale
• Milestones and Timeframe
• Actual Deployment Progress and Challenges Encountered
• Brainstorming and Architectural Structure
• Strategic Issues and Challenges
• Perspectives
• Stakeholders Involved
• References

Currently, almost all Cameroon domestic Internet (cmDOit – CaMeroon DOmestic InterneT) traffic passes through routers located outside the African continent (Europe, USA). In other words, communications that are supposed to originate and terminate between two routers bordering two separate autonomous systems (Example: AS64496 and AS64511 – whose networks would both be located within Cameroonian territory) involve intermediate routers located far from the country.

The existence of three, or even four, IXPs (https://www.cmnog.cm/dokuwiki/CM-IXP-Federation) within the country is not yet sufficient to trigger the support of domestic autonomous system number holders for the common national interest: “Developing Cameroon's Domestic Internet; by exchanging all domestic traffic via the country's IXPs.”

The presentation theme, “Cameroon IPTV Project: Multicasting 34 TV Channels into Domestic IXP Points of Presence (POPs) through CAMDTV; in order to keep local the domestic traffic”, aims to raise awareness of the CAMIX initiative, with the active participation of other organizations such as cmNOG, the Cameroon Chapter of the Internet Society, and AYKLab.com, in support of the Technical Unit of the National Steering Committee for the CAMDTV Program (Analog to Digital Terrestrial Television Migration in Cameroon – https://www.apc.org/en/guide-cameroon-dso | https://www.apc.org/en/guide-cameroon-dso-fr).

By publicly sharing our ambitions and progress with the internet community (https://camdtv.camix.cm), we hope to:

(i) explain our motivations and current approach;
(ii) highlight the challenges we are facing;
(iii) gather feedback from volunteers and experts for adjustments/reorientation;
(iv) to generate attraction, buy-in, and diverse support;
(v) to encourage other countries to take an interest and replicate the approach.

The current focus is on a specific type of domestic content (TV and Radio). The main technical challenge is to “transfer multicast traffic within anycast peering platforms in a context of BUM (Broadcast Unknown Unicast and Multicast traffic) risk”; with the prospect of leveraging solutions combining PIM-SSM (PIM Source-Specific Multicast), VxLAN, and eVPN protocols via the BGP routing protocol. By demonstrating the feasibility of the cmDOit objective, all stakeholders will be more motivated to engage and actively contribute to achieving, together, the next milestones in the nationalization of domestic traffic in Cameroon.

• PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR DIGITAL SWITCHOVER (DSO) IN CAMEROON

Lishan Adam, Mike Jensen, Steve Song, Russell Southwood, Association for Progressive Communications (APC) and Balancing Act, March 2013, https://www.apc.org/sites/default/files/APC_CameroonDSO-EN_1.pdf

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