Global Internet connectedness: 2002–2011

We examine the communications networks formed by direct international Internet links, weighted by bandwidth capacity, each year over the 2002–2011 period.While the 2011 network closely resembles that of 2002, the network has become more tightly interconnected over time. With countries as nodes, connectedness was measured by both changes in median degree and overall network density. We also considered networks formed by aggregating countries into United Nations (UN) continent and region categories as well as network communities identified through tightness of degree interconnection weighted by bandwidth. While relative connectedness as measured by percentage of bandwidth staying within UN geographic regions is decreasing, the percentage remaining within the continent has been fairly constant over the period. All of this must, of course, be understood in the context of enormous total international bandwidth growth between 2002 and 2011 at all levels of analysis.