[Outages-discussion] Internet "backbone"

[Patrick W. Gilmore]

On Nov 18, 2011, at 4:10 PM, Larry Sheldon wrote:
> On 11/18/2011 2:57 PM, Joseph Jackson wrote:
>> I think we should disabuse the notion that there is a Internet
>> "backbone". With all the interconnection of networks and POPs that
>> services Internet connectivity is it correct to still consider that the
>> internet has a backbone? This isn't the NSFnet anymore with a few long
>> haul links between sites. When someone says Internet Backbone what are
>> they trying to describe since such a physical infrastructure doesn't
>> really exist anymore.
> 
> Last I heard (I've been inactive for a while) "the backbone" == "the default-free zone".

I've heard that.  But there are serious questions about the default-free zone.  Plus most traffic never touches it these days, and hasn't for a few years.  Not much of a "backbone", huh?


> I didn't think the term ever had any useful meaning above the physical layer (if that).

It did in the NSFnet days & before.

Since then, it has never had any meaning, of any type.  At least not any serious meaning.

-- 
TTFN,
patrick