Blog: Escher-Like Internet Map Could Speed Online Traffic

Escher-Like Internet Map Could Speed Online Traffic
New Scientist (09/08/10) Jacob Aron

Researchers at the University of Barcelona have developed a map of the Internet that could help eliminate network glitches. Barcelona researcher Marian Boguna fit the entire Internet into a disc using hyperbolic geometry. Each square on the map is a section of the Internet managed by a single body, such as a national government or a service provider. The most well-connected systems are close to the middle, while the least connected are at the edges. The researchers say the new map could provide coordinates for every system on the Internet, which could speed up routing traffic. Although the map shows just the number of connections between each autonomous system, the geography of the hyperbolic Internet map often reflects that of the real world. For example, a number of western European nations are clustered in one sector. The researchers also used simulations to demonstrate that a map of the Internet based on actual geographic relationships between systems trapped much more traffic within the network than the hyperbolic map.

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