CibbuanoIs the US slipping as the center of the internet?
December 23rd 2008 04:40
The Internet remains one of humanity's great inventions and it was formed primarily in the United States, where the American military sponsored research in a telecommunication network. No one ever imagined that it would see unprecedented growth and beomce such an integral part of our lives.
As the birthplace of the net, the US has held much of the control over the net, adminstering the root servers and acting as a global transtation for global traffic.
According to the Guardian, there's less and less traffic going through the US backbone, which suggests that other countries are handling their own traffic.
"It found that dramatic shifts have led to a decline in America's involvement in overall internet traffic. In 1999, 91% of data from Asia passed through the United States at some point on its journey. By this year that number had fallen to just 54%.
The change was even more pronounced in Africa. Nine years ago the US was involved in 70% of internet traffic coming from the continent, but that number has decreased to just 6% as more can be directed internally, or through Europe and the Middle East."
The change was even more pronounced in Africa. Nine years ago the US was involved in 70% of internet traffic coming from the continent, but that number has decreased to just 6% as more can be directed internally, or through Europe and the Middle East."
I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing; the forefathers of the net would have watned as much autonomy built into it as possible - routing traffic through other parts of the world is not only efficient, but great for security, as we discovered when undersea cables in the Middle East were severed, cutting off parts of India.
Still,. this seems to be a dangerous portent of the waning influence of the American technology sector, which, for years, has driven innovation and progress.
The article also notes that China has recently overtaken America as the country with the greatest number of people online, which suggests that we miught see a change in the structure of the net, allowing domain names to be written in Chinese, Japanese or other languages.
*this image is from gnome.org
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Comment by Damo
It has no center and it would be too expensive to run if it did.
It is owned by everyone and no one at once.
Development and population will eventually determine the traffic.