Sankey Diagrams » internet http://www.sankey-diagrams.com A Sankey diagram says more than 1000 pie charts Wed, 11 Aug 2010 14:42:29 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 World Internet Bandwith Sankey http://www.sankey-diagrams.com/a-world-internet-bandwith-sankey/ http://www.sankey-diagrams.com/a-world-internet-bandwith-sankey/#comments Fri, 08 Feb 2008 18:00:55 +0000 phineas http://www.sankey-diagrams.com/a-world-internet-bandwith-sankey/ The cutting of two submarine internet cables in the Mediterranean Sea at the end of January, and another one in the Persian Gulf a few days later, was widely reported in the news. The cuts affected internet services and call center operations in large parts of the Middle East and India, sparking discussions about emergency backup plans for offshore software development.

This reminded me of the internet traffic maps I had seen on the Web before. These are available as traffic load maps as well as bandwidth capacity maps of the backbone infrastructure.

Global Internet Traffic Map 2008. Taken from http://www.telegeography.com/products/map_internet - Copyright: PriMetrica, Inc.Internet Bandwidth Map 2005. Taken from http://www.singeo.com.sg - Copyright: PriMetrica, Inc.Internet Traffic Map 2006. Taken from http://www.telegeography.com/products/map_internet - Copyright: PriMetrica, Inc.South America Internet bandwidth. Taken from 'Hot Wiring Peru' at 'Peruvian Graffiti' (http://www.gci275.com/peru/internet.shtml) . Copyright: TeleGeography Inc. 1999

Indeed these maps can be considered as fine examples of Sankey diagrams, with bi-directional (or non-directional?) arrows whose magnitude represent the bandwidth of the transcontinental internet cables. Additional arrow colors could be used, for example, to represent ownership or operation of the cable by different companies.

At the same time the Sankey maps may also serve to indicate communication technology development in different world regions.

BTW, if you want to stick one of these maps prominently on your office wall, they are available as posters here.

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