Talk:Internet backbone

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2020 and 27 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): AnimusCrypta.

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AMS-IX vs LINX
Based on traffic graphs, membership lists, etc avaliable on both LINX and AMS-IX's public webpages, i have updated this to reflect that AMS-IX is larger than LINX. If LINX ever was the largest in traffic, it's not true anymore, I sincerely doubt that LINX ever was the largest in number of connected peers, furthermore "number of routes" is not a useful statistic and I have changed this to "connected peers"

24.3.208.244
24.3.208.244 removed some useful information. Looks like vandalism to me.

Successful test
"Successful test?" Doesn't that make it sound a bit like the failures were planned? --Markzero 07:03, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

This page is horribly out of date and should be made to reflect the active Tier_1_ISP

This page is HORRIBLY out of date, and needs a MAJOR rewrite. For example, there are no such things as "Tier 1 ISPs" any more, as even those listed pay for some traffic to be exchanged (see Level3/Comcast, and others). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.18.36.186 (talk) 09:01, 12 June 2016 (UTC)

IP backbone?
What is an IP backbone? It is currently a redlink. Should I redirect it here or can someone start a stub on it? Ta. --Mais oui! 11:35, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Physical layer map?
Has anyone seen a map of the global physical infrastructure of the internet backbone? I imagine that the bulk majority of IP traffic would be carried over fibre rather than satellite, and I would be fascinated to see a map of where that bandwidth physically runs. --Sapphire Wyvern 04:21, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Bogus
This article is completely bogus. I like to challenge anyone to define what this backbone really is and which links it contains. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Kbrose (talk • contribs) 03:58, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Content?
This page consists entirely of an introductory paragraph and an 'overview.' Is there more useful information that could be added? Nave.notnilc (talk) 20:26, 3 December 2008 (UTC)

Economic of the Backbone
Could a knowledgeable person include a section on the Economic of the Internet Backbone. Who pays whom how much for Internet traffic? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.143.165.36 (talk) 01:33, 22 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't think you could possibly source such a section via WP:RS. Most of this stuff is covered by non-disclosure agreements and/or private contracts. Wrs1864 (talk) 12:41, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

"...in the Internet."
Shouldn't that be "of the Internet" or on it, even? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.139.238.219 (talk) 01:45, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Imbedded Advertisements?
Sounds like an ad for Verizon: "As of 2010 however, Verizon [2] has become "the world's most connected internet backbone." Verizon has a very large internet footprint that reaches all over the world due to their diverse customer base which includes small and medium size businesses, large corporations, content providers, and many more. They have held this top spot for 11 of the past 12 years.[9] Verizon also plans to increase backbone speeds in the U.S to 100 Gbit/s, the first company to do so. Some of this enhanced data speed can be seen on routes from Chicago to New York and Minneapolis to Kansas City.[10]"

And an ad for Level 3: "The company Level 3 Communications has begun to launch a line of dedicated internet access and virtual private network services which gives large companies direct access to the Tier 3 level backbone. Connecting companies directly to the backbone will allow enterprises faster internet service which meets a large market need.[16]" Kelbrowne (talk) 05:16, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

List of Tier 1 Providers
The list is clearly not correct. The source for the 2013 list is an article from 2003. The list is very different from the article on Tier 1.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tier_1_network#List_of_tier_1_networks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.179.15.63 (talk) 22:31, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

CSNET
This text:
 * Among many others, CSNET was a large international network started by the U.S. National Science Foundation which connected computer science departments at academic institutions in several countries. It had a parallel structure to the ARPANET, to which it was interconnected. After the success of CSNET, the National Science Foundation created the more ambitious NSFNET in 1986, with six sites on a 56kbit/s backbone in 1986. In 1987 it was upgraded to 1.5Mbit/s (T1) for thirteen sites. These sites included regional networks that in turn connected over 170 other networks. IBM, MCI and Merit upgraded the backbone to 45Mbit/s (T3) lines in 1991.

was removed by User:Kbrose with the edit summary: "remove excessive mentioning of CSNET, it was not a backbone network of any kind and didn't run TCP/IP". I'm not familiar enough with the history to decide which characterization is fair. Anyone else have any opinions on the role of CSNET in Internet history? -- Beland (talk) 23:25, 23 April 2014 (UTC)


 * CSNET never was a component of the early Internet, or even the ARPANET. It ran traffic over mostly UUCP links over telephone dialup or X.25, and only connected to the ARPANET via certain gateways that translated the traffic to TCP/IP. Even when CSNET did support TCP/IP later, it was tunneled over X.25. Even late in early Internet history, after NSFNET had been established, CSNET was essentially an independent network of university computer science departments. The CSNET article puts this date to 1989, by which time direct, native access to the Internet was already available to many universities and regional networks, and it was consequently shut down a couple years later. The fact that CSNET was also funded by the NSF doesn't really make it a part or even a backbone of the Internet. It was a parallel effort, fulfilled a temporary need, and contributed to the technological evolution for which it has been recognized. Kbrose (talk) 16:54, 24 April 2014 (UTC)


 * Hmm. If the article's claim that the interconnection of the ARPANET and NSFNET became known as the Internet, arguably CSNET was one of the networks on the Internet.  But I'll buy the argument that it wasn't part of the Internet backbone, so it seems fine to defer coverage to other articles. Thanks! -- Beland (talk) 01:04, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Inadequate content, scope, organization, updating, and references
I doubt that this article deserves a Class C designation. I'd suggest "Start" at best. I agree with the designation of "High importance". A list of perceived quality shortcomings follows.

1) Definition of "backbone": "Principal data routes" is too vague and inclusive. Is there some minimum bandwidth requirement for inclusion in the category of backbone? Or some relationship with the IP address space? The illustration does not resemble a backbone in the slightest-- is this a realistic portrayal?. Shouldn't the various links be characterized by their capacities (say by using various line thicknesses)?

2) Inadequate content: The "Modern Backbone" section is sketchy. Why are there no facts about the Tier 1 providers? Some information about the network sizes and data capacity of the various companies would be useful. This section deals only with the USA.

3) Out of date: Six out of seven of the substantial references are from the year 2003 or earlier. The most recent references are from 2011. The whole section "Modern Backbone" appears not to have been updated since 2011.

4) Inadequate references: Citation number 2, which is used heavily, is incomplete. Is this a document or a private communication with the referenced authors? References for the regional section are of marginal quality. Most are from service interruption news reports, of minimal scope and import.

5) Scope: The "Regional" section includes Egypt, but not the US? Some kind of reasonable definition of a "region" is needed. Some of this section is so vague as to convey little information. If the topic of regional backbones is to be included, some kind of table is needed. Entries in the table should indicate important parameters in each region. Parameters tabulated might include bandwidth, redundancy, reliability, government controls, and economic stability of the Tier 1 provider(s).

6) Organization: Perhaps some of the information I'm calling for is in the linked articles? If so, I think some of the information should be brought up a level. Why is there a separate article called "Backbone network"? Isn't that what this article purports to cover? What is "Internet2"? Is it "Internet 2.0"? Even that designation might be too arcane. Some of these links need to be more descriptive.

Wcmead3 (talk) 14:49, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

Layer 2 protocols
I think this page lacks a discussion (or a list) of the most layer 2 protocols used (both historically and currently) in the Internet Backbone. Teo8976 (talk) 16:58, 8 February 2015 (UTC)

First packet-switching network
This was (apparently, and according to Wikipedia, which is cited) the NPL network. I will edit the article to reflect this, and anyone who disagrees can discuss it here in a Bold, Revert, Discuss cycle and hopefully come to whichever is the correct conclusion. --98.122.20.56 (talk) 05:35, 18 July 2016 (UTC)

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Network backbone word ethymology
Never thinked about it, but recently I heard it is called "backbone" because of old ethernet networks like 10base-5 used a very think concentric cables, like a backbone. And this was kind of the source of the future use. Does anybody has some more sources to back it up? 81.6.34.169 (talk) 22:29, 19 April 2024 (UTC)