Sustaining the Internet with Hyperbolic Mapping

TL;DR

This paper introduces a hyperbolic mapping method for the Internet that improves routing scalability and offers new insights into network community structures, addressing current infrastructure stress.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel hyperbolic mapping technique that enhances Internet routing scalability and provides a new perspective on complex network community structures.

Findings

Routing in the hyperbolic map scales near the theoretical optimum

The mapping reduces routing overhead and improves efficiency

Provides a publicly available Internet map for further research

Abstract

The Internet infrastructure is severely stressed. Rapidly growing overheads associated with the primary function of the Internet---routing information packets between any two computers in the world---cause concerns among Internet experts that the existing Internet routing architecture may not sustain even another decade. Here we present a method to map the Internet to a hyperbolic space. Guided with the constructed map, which we release with this paper, Internet routing exhibits scaling properties close to theoretically best possible, thus resolving serious scaling limitations that the Internet faces today. Besides this immediate practical viability, our network mapping method can provide a different perspective on the community structure in complex networks.