Degree and connectivity of the Internet's scale-free topology

TL;DR

This paper develops a mathematical model of the Internet's scale-free topology at the AS level, analyzing degree distribution, connectivity ratios, and the dominance of highly connected nodes, supported by empirical data.

Contribution

It introduces a new mathematical model for the Internet's scale-free topology and provides formulas for key network metrics, validated with empirical BGP data.

Findings

Average degree decreases with higher power-law exponent

Top 27% of nodes hold about 73% of total links

Ratios of degree nodes follow power-law decay patterns

Abstract

In this paper we theoretically and empirically study the degree and connectivity of the Internet's scale-free topology at the autonomous system (AS) level. The basic features of the scale-free network have influence on the normalization constant of the degree distribution p(k). We develop a mathematics model of the Internet's scale-free topology. On this model we theoretically get the formulas of the average degree, the ratios of the kmin-degree (minimum degree) nodes and the kmax-degree (maximum degree) nodes, the fraction of the degrees (or links) in the hands of the richer (top best-connected) nodes. We find the average degree is larger for smaller power-law exponent {\lambda} and larger minimum or maximum degree. The ratio of the kmin-degree nodes is larger for larger {\lambda} and smaller kmin or kmax. The ratio of the kmax-degree ones is larger for smaller {\lambda} and kmax or larger kmin. The richer nodes hold most of the total degrees of the AS-level Internet topology. In addition, we reveal the ratio of the kmin-degree nodes or the rate of the increase of the average degree has power-law decay with the increase of the kmin. The ratio of the kmax-degree nodes has power-law decay with the increase of the kmax, and the fraction of the degrees in the hands of the richer 27% nodes is about 73% (the '73/27 rule'). At last, we empirically calculate, based on empirical data extracted from BGP, the average degree and the ratio and fraction using our method and other methods, and find that our method is rigorous and effective for the AS-level Internet topology.