Xref: utzoo news.misc:1492 news.config:641 Path: utzoo!linus!husc6!purdue!decwrl!reid From: reid@decwrl.dec.com (Brian Reid) Newsgroups: news.misc,news.config Subject: Re: The USENET Backbone (Updated: 17 May 1988) Message-ID: <497@bacchus.DEC.COM> Date: 25 May 88 08:31:24 GMT References: <4118@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> <3283@phri.UUCP> Reply-To: reid@decwrl.UUCP (Brian Reid) Organization: DEC Western Research Lines: 16 In article <3283@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: > If my observations for my local bit of the net hold true all over >then I must conclude that the backbone map, while pretty to look at, really >isn't worth much. I have a program that looks around a spooling directory and makes a PostScript map showing how the news got to your site, with the widths of the lines corresponding to the amount of that traffic. I have not yet found a site whose news depends on backbone-to-backbone communication. The vast majority of the network traffic is carried by non-backbone sites. There are some places that are dependent on a single backbone site to feed the neighborhood, but in general the network traffic does not get carried over "backbone links". Brian