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