Re: the Internet Backbone

[Paul Ferguson <pferguso () cisco com>]

At 03:34 PM 4/5/96 +0800, Vadim Antonov wrote:

> Paul A Vixie <paul () vix com> wrote:
>
> > Last time this term came up, I opined that there was no "backbone" any more
> > and that 1996's Internet had a "hairball topology."  Vadim, among others,
> > disagreed with me but we didn't pursue the topic.  Perhaps we should have.
>
> Well, "backbone" is too vague.  I rather prefer to think of Internet
> topology as of "tiers".  The nodes in upper-levels cast "cones of
> influence" in lower tiers.  Nodes from lower tiers belonging to 
> different cones of influence do not generally speak to each other,
> and so have to purchase transit from higher tiers.

Well, I kind of liked the term 'blobs' [credit to Jerry Scharf].  :-)

- paul