[e2e] topological locality of Internet communication?

[Lars Eggert]

Panos TRIMINTZIOS wrote:
> Information about AS Paths from routes advertised with BGP on the
> average/maximum AS path length (maybe also taking into account AS Path
> prepending statistics) is an indication of the "AS hops" a typical
> connection may cross in the Internet. Currently I the average AS Path
> size is around 3.5 AS hops, while the maximum 11-12.

Thanks to Panos and others for providing these BGP-based numbers!

However, they're not exactly what I was looking for. Knowing that the 
average BGP path is around 3.5 hops is useful *if* the "average" host 
starts connections to random other hosts in the Internet. I'm pretty 
sure that the latter doesn't hold, i.e., that the communication pattern 
of hosts isn't random.

Jennifer's work on an AS-level traceroute is also interesting and 
relevant; thanks for pointing me at it. However, I'm not completely sure 
whether her tool can be run against an existing dump or requires live 
traces. If the latter, I fear that those measurements could take up the 
student's entire thesis time to be reasonably accurate.

Thanks again to all who responded!

Lars
-- 
Lars Eggert                                     NEC Network Laboratories
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