A National Internet Exchange Point will officially be opened in Laos on August 20, an official from Science Technology and Environment Agency (STEA). The National Internet Exchange Point is being installed at the six Internet Service Providers (ISP) in Laos and more than ten ministries are being urged to connect them together. "Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) will fund the project.
    An Internet Exchange Point connects internet service providers in a region or country, allowing them to exchange domestic internet traffic locally without having to send those messages across multiple international hops to reach their destination. Internet exchange points are typically used by service providers to reduce dependency on their respective upstream providers; furthermore, they are used to increase efficiency. The costs for operating an internet exchange point are typically shared by all participating ISPs.
     The plan was the outcome of the project LaoniX, an internet exchange infrastructure, which was part of the course "Communication System Design 2004" held at the IT-University in Stockholm, Sweden. "Lao Internet Exchange is as an interconnecting point that will permit all its members to exchange data without traffic having to transit outside the boundary of the country network unnecessarily.. Laos has six ISPs - Lane Xang Internet Provider, Lao Telcom, Lao News Agency, Planet, Enterprise Telcom Lao and Lao National Internet Committee - which all have their own internet gateway. With the internet exchange point the six service providers will be connected. The exchange point will dramatically improve the quality of the local connections for users in Laos and will speed up access to websites. "The technology will improve the local traffic while saving bandwidth and increasing speed on the Internet system, the cost of Internet connectivity and bandwidth will be reduced and the quality of the service will also be improved.
    The exchange point would promote public users to exchange their information together and get information easily. The problem today is that there are not any connections between ISPs in Laos. This means that if one Internet user wants to communicate with another user at a different ISP in Laos, the traffic has to be routed to Thailand or Singapore where the ISP's interconnect via the Internet. Finally, the exchange point would help local Internet users in Laos by not transiting their messages outside the country.