Towards Comprehensive Mapping of Africa's Internet Infrastructure

Africa's network infrastructure is rapidly evolving, yet very little effort has been spent to measurement and mapping of infrastructure. Unlike other internet ecosystems, Africa's infrastructure is heavily dependent on Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), subsea cables and Autonomous System Numbers (ASNs) serving mobile networks. In this paper, we take the first step to understand the ability of popular network characterization tools and lists (e.g., CAIDA IP-hitlist, ANT, and YARRP) to assess these key components. Our analysis reveals significant gaps, most notably, consistently low IXP detection across all tools. We present a preliminary solution, provide initial results of the viability of this solution.