Internet diameter?

Thu Nov 22 04:41:52 UTC 2018

> I’m not sure on what use this data, if collected, would be. Latency is
the most important.
It's not operationally useful in any way that I can think of, but it is
interesting (at least to me). It's possible that Bill has something in
mind, though.

> [...] which is more meaningful a metric, AS-path or hop count?
Good point. Before we can decide which is more useful, we have to decide
what they would be useful for.
But, I think it's not really feasible to analyze hop count, because you
would have to collect that data with a huge number of traceroutes.
Average/median AS-path length can be estimated by static analysis of BGP
tables from various routers.

> Many networks have a large number of routers but the packets don’t stay
in them very long.
It wouldn't be a very good router if the packets hung around for a long
time before leaving :)

On Wed, Nov 21, 2018 at 11:26 PM Ben Cannon <ben at 6by7.net> wrote:

> This begs the question, which is more meaningful a metric, AS-path or hop
> count?  Many networks have a large number of routers but the packets don’t
> stay in them very long.
>
> -Ben.
>
>
> On Nov 21, 2018, at 8:10 PM, Bryce Wilson <bryce at thenetworknerds.ca>
> wrote:
>
> I don’t have any hard statistics but I notice that on a majority of ASs on
> bgp.he.net, the average AS path length is between 4 and 5. As for the
> average number of hops, it clearly depends on what type of traffic and many
> ASNs have more than one router. Going on my own experience I would say
> between 8 and 10 hops would be the average of non-cached content. If you
> included cached content such as cdns and caches then the actual average
> might be closer to 5 to 7. This is only an estimate from my own network and
> those of my clients so the actual value may be completely different.
>
> As with what others have said, I’m not sure on what use this data, if
> collected, would be. Latency is the most important.
>
>
> Thanks ~ Bryce Wilson, AS202313, EVIX, AS137933
>
>
>
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