A Quasi-realistic Internet Graph

The existence of a realistic Internet interconnections model has been an important requirement to effectively support areas as routing optimization, routing security, and services QoS prediction. However, no usable and no useful models exist. The existing interconnection models are to (i) simplistic to be applicable in real scenarios, or (ii) incorporate to much uncorrelated information that cannot be used due to its complexity. This work presents the construction steps and final solution for a quasi-realist graph that models the Internet as an all. The graph is based on all known Internet exchange points (IX) and landing points of all known submarine cables. The lack of information about interconnections between IX and landing points is extrapolated from simple rules that take in consideration Earth geographic characteristics. This approach results in a graph that includes all major corner stones of the Internet while maintaining a simple structure. This graph can then be used to predict connectivity and routing properties between any two geographical points in Earth. The proof-of-concept results, even with very simplistic assumptions as similar node and link loads and symmetric routing by the shortest path, show that the model allows the prediction of the round-trip time of traffic and number of nodes between any two Internet points with an acceptable average error.