The Geography of Internet Infrastructure: An evolutionary simulation approach based on preferential attachment

We model the evolution of infrastructure networks as a preferential attachment process. We assume that geographical distance and country borders provide barriers to link formation in infrastructure networks. The model is validated against empirical data on the European Internet infrastructure network covering 209 cities. We successfully simulate the average path length and average clustering coefficient of the observed network. Furthermore, the simulated network shows a significant correlation with the observed European Internet infrastructure network. We end with a discussion on the future uses of preferential attachment models in the light of the literature on world cities and global cities.