Analyzing the Evolution of the Internet

Abstract

Existing representations of the Internet do not provide information on why countries have a bigger Internet presence (e.g., Internet Service Providers) than others. In this paper we evaluate four geo-economic parameters (area, population, GDP and GDP per capita), looking for clues of why some areas or countries have developed earlier/ later, faster/slower than others. We use correlation studies to analyze which geo-economic variable leads to bigger development in the Internet infrastructure per continent, and cartograms to represent the growth of the Internet infrastructure around the world, in a sequence of 24 years. These representations make it possible to find interesting patterns and identify outliers.