ISPA’s 30th Birthday Celebration at ZANOG@iWeek2026

21 January 2026

Celebrate ISPA’s 30th Birthday with the internet Who’s Who at ZANOG@iWeek2026

Mark your calendar for South Africa’s leading ICT conference – from 21 to 23 April 2026 – at the Irene Country Lodge in Pretoria, Gauteng.

This year marks ISPA’s 30 year anniversary since a group of competing ISPs united in a move that would ensure fair competition in the South African market. ISPA, its members and supporters have made tremendous progress in liberalising the SA internet over the past three decades.

Following on the success of the most recent iWeek conference hosted in the Western Cape, South Africa’s official industry representative body for ISPs will again be co-hosting this year’s leading SA ICT conference with ZANOG (the South African Network Operators Group).

This powerful collaboration will ensure that the conference attracts engineers and business professionals from South Africa’s top internet and communications companies, as well as government representatives and future leaders of the internet sector in Southern Africa.

ZANOG@iWeek2026 will be the 21st iWeek conference held since 2000 and, as always, attendance is entirely free.

The theme for the first day of ZANOG@iWeek2026 will be “Towards Universal and Meaningful Connectivity” comprising a series of presentations that will be inspiring and thought-provoking for ISPs and other delegates working to connect our country. Whereas about 80% of South Africans are active internet users, there is still much work to be done to improve the quality and cost of services, and many challenges to be overcome to connect the remaining 20% and close the digital divide in SA.

ZANOG@iWeek2026 also celebrates INX-ZA’s milestone achievement of 30 years of uninterrupted peering at South Africa’s IXPs (Internet eXchange Points). The first Johannesburg IXP (JINX) has had 100% uptime since 1996, as have the subsequent IXPs: CINX (Cape Town), DINX (Durban) and NBINX (Nelson Mandela Bay) which have never experienced a single minute of downtime, ever.

Confirmed event sponsors include Telcables as Exabyte Sponsor and Flexoptix as a Petabyte sponsor, along with ZA Registry Consortium (ZARC) and INX-ZA – the backbones of South Africa’s internet infrastructure at ZANOG@iWeek2026.

Speakers and session details will be announced closer to the time, and will include technology disruption and innovation, networking, cybersecurity and resilience, skills and collaboration, domains, internet governance, regulatory issues, and latest cutting edge technology evolutions.

ZANOG’s mission is to optimise and streamline Africa’s role within the global internet community and will focus on technological best-practices for local, regional communities and peering networks as infrastructure is developed throughout Africa.

Established in 1996, the Internet Service Providers’ Association is South Africa’s officially recognised internet representative body which currently represents over 245 members providing a diverse range of internet related services.

INX-ZA, the operators of South Africa’s neutral, community-driven internet exchange ecosystem, operates under the auspices of ISPA to provide a network for internet exchange points for ISPs to exchange data, reduce costs, improve speed and make the internet more resilient by keeping local traffic within the country. INX-ZA is a vital part of the digital ecosystem and has a 100% uptime at all its peering points including Africa’s oldest IXP, JINX, since 1996.

Check the ZANOG@iWeek2026 website regularly for updates.

For sponsorship opportunities, please see iWeek.org.za/sponsorships.