NAIROBI · Kenya
PeeringDB records five internet exchanges in Nairobi and 204 peering participants across them. KIXP - Nairobi is the best connected of the five with 140 participants, ahead of LINX Nairobi at 59. Six colocation facilities hold 209 networks. An address geolocating to Nairobi reflects an operator's registration record rather than the position of the device using it.
Internet exchanges in NAIROBI
An exchange is a shared switch where networks hand traffic to each other directly. Participant counts come from PeeringDB, where each network maintains its own record.
| Exchange | Participants | Registry carriers peering |
|---|---|---|
KIXP - Nairobi Kenya Internet Exchange Point - Nairobi | 140 | |
LINX Nairobi | 59 | none in the registry |
Asteroid Nairobi | 5 | none in the registry |
BGP.Exchange - Nairobi | 0 | none in the registry |
PLUGINS IX | 0 | none in the registry |
Exchange records: PeeringDB.
Colocation facilities
Buildings where networks put equipment. The network count is how many PeeringDB members list a presence there, which shows where capacity in the city sits.
| Facility | Networks present | Address |
|---|---|---|
| Africa Data Centres, Nairobi NBO1, Kenya | 122 | Sameer Business Park Mombasa Road |
| iXAfrica NBOX1 (Nairobi X One) | 44 | Cabanas, Mombasa Road. PO BOX 41648-00100, |
| PAIX Nairobi | 37 | Britam Tower Hospital Road, Upperhill |
| Icolo | 3 | LRC Road Off Langata South Road Karen |
| Telkom - Milimani Data Center - Nairobi | 2 | Telkom Plaza, Ralph Bunch Road - Nairobi Milimani DC - Bishop Road |
| Telkom - Telephone House - Nairobi | 1 | Koinange Street Posta Street |
What a NAIROBI IP address tells you
KIXP - Nairobi carries 140 of the 204 peering participants PeeringDB records in the city, and LINX Nairobi accounts for another 59. Asteroid Nairobi has five, while BGP.Exchange - Nairobi and PLUGINS IX have none on record. Colocation carries comparable weight, since 209 networks sit across six facilities, with Africa Data Centres NBO1 holding 122 of them, iXAfrica NBOX1 44 and PAIX Nairobi 37. The registry lists no Kenyan mobile operators, so no mobile ASN can be matched against the participant lists of any exchange in the city.
An address that a database places in Nairobi need not be a device in Nairobi. An operator announces a block from a registry record that carries a single address for the entire allocation, and every prefix under it inherits that location in public data. Mobile networks concentrate subscriber traffic into a small number of gateways, so one exit address can stand for users spread across Kenya. Geolocation providers read the published location and repeat it, which is why a phone connected far from the city still resolves to Nairobi in most lookups.
Anyone checking an address gets more from the origin ASN and the netname on the specific prefix than from the city field. The ASN names the network that announced the block and shows whether it is a fixed line operator or a mobile one, and the netname often reveals how that operator has divided its space internally. Neither the 140 participants at KIXP - Nairobi nor the 122 networks inside Africa Data Centres NBO1 say anything about where a given subscriber sits, because those counts describe networks present in the city, not the people behind them.
Questions
Which internet exchanges are in Nairobi?
PeeringDB lists five. KIXP - Nairobi has 140 participants and LINX Nairobi 59, Asteroid Nairobi has five, and BGP.Exchange - Nairobi and PLUGINS IX have none recorded. Networks that peer privately inside a facility rather than at an exchange never appear in those counts, so the real figure runs higher.
Do Kenyan mobile carriers peer in Nairobi?
The registry holds no entries for Kenyan mobile operators, so no mobile ASN is matched to KIXP - Nairobi or to any other exchange in the city. That is a gap in the record rather than evidence that mobile networks keep away from Nairobi peering.
Does an IP that geolocates to Nairobi mean the device is there?
No. The city label comes from the address block's registration and the location the operator publishes for it, not from the device. A subscriber elsewhere in Kenya can leave through a gateway whose addresses are registered in Nairobi and will show up there in every database copying that record.
Sources
- PeeringDB - exchanges, participant counts, facilities and network presence, snapshot 2026-09-07
- PROXIES.SX carrier and ASN registry - operator ASNs used to match peering participants