Interconnection in Latin America and the Caribbean
24/09/2015
During the Network Operators’ Forum that will meet from 28 September to 2 November, Sofia Silva Berenguer (IMDEA Networks) will present her research on the status of interconnection in Latin America and how it compares to other regions.
“The good news is that regional interconnection is not as bad as we think it is; even so, there is room for improvement,” the young researcher currently participating in this interconnection project told LACNIC News.
According to the research, the average degree of interconnection in Latin America y relatively similar to the one in the APNIC region, “which is an interesting finding,” Silva noted.
“During my presentation (to be held on Wednesday 30 September) I will be showing a comparative chart with different metrics for the various regions,” she added.
A per-country analysis, shows that Brazil, Mexico and Argentina are the regional leaders in terms of Autonomous Systems, number and average degree of interconnections, followed by Panama and Colombia, after which the ranking varies somewhat depending on which parameter is considered.
The work also simulates the creation of Internet exchange points in certain countries. In this sense, a 15% increase in the average interconnection among active autonomous systems was observed in the countries where the simulation was run.
Silva said that the research on LAC interconnection was implemented using graphs to model the Internet at Autonomous System level. In these graphs, an Autonomous System is represented by a node, while the interconnection between two Autonomous Systems is represented by an edge. One of the parameters measured in these graphs to analyze the level of interconnection is node degree. Node degree is the number of edges that reach the node. An average degree can then be calculated for the entire graph. “This means that, in our case, the graph’s average degree measures the average number of links per Autonomous System,” Silva observed.
“I defined certain metrics in order to compare the graphs for different regions and countries.” In addition, taking advantage of country-level graphs, I simulated the creation of Internet exchange points in certain countries and analyzed their potential impact. Silva concluded by saying she would show these results in her presentation.
More details will be presented on September 30th in Bogotá http://eventos.lacnic.net/lacnic24
The views expressed by the authors of this blog are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views of LACNIC.