Ever imagine how vast the Internet really is?...
- - - - This is a map of what is called 'the Internet Backbone' of North America. - - - -
The Internet backbone refers to the main ‘trunk’ connections of the Internet. It is made up of a large collection of interconnected commercial, government, academic and other high-capacity data routes and routers that carry data across the countries, continents and oceans of the world.
(March 17,2006) What is this ball of colors in the map below? It is the North American Internet, or more specifically a map of just about every router on the North American backbone, (there are 134,855 of them for those who are counting).
 |
The colors represent who each router is registered to. Red is Verizon, blue AT&T, yellow Qwest, green is other backbone players like Level 3 & Sprint Nextel, black is the entire cable industry put togethe, & gray is everyone else, from small telecommunications companies to large international players who only have a small presence in the U.S. This map demonstrates that although AT&T & Verizon own a lot of Internet pipes, they currently do not dominate the Internet infrastructure (yet). |
Next time your Internet connection goes down....the problem might not be right here in town....it could be six states away. And tracking down the problem, while we have the expertise to do so, does not mean we always have the power to fix it. click image for full size (just north america's internet) additional maps: map of GTE backbone; map if UUNET |
|