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Five Blind Men and the Internet: Towards an Understanding of Internet Traffic

Authors Ege Cem Kirci , Ayush Mishra , Laurent Vanbever

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Subject Classification

ACM Subject Classification
  • Networks → Network measurement
  • Networks → Network monitoring
  • Networks → Public Internet
Keywords
  • Internet Exchange Point (IXP)
  • traffic measurement
  • longitudinal study
  • traffic growth
  • diurnal patterns
  • PeeringDB
  • global-scale detection
  • network anomalies

Metrics

Abstract

Our current view of traffic on the Internet - the world’s largest and most pervasive network - comes from a variety of perspectives, each with its own blind spots and biases. In this paper, we make the case for using publicly available Internet exchange point (IXP) statistics as a complementary vantage point. While IXP data has its own limitations, it is fine-grained, accessible, and independently verifiable - offering a distinct perspective on Internet usage patterns. We present results from a two-year study (2023-2024) of 472 IXPs worldwide, capturing approximately 300 Tbps of peak daily aggregate traffic by late 2024. Over this period, aggregate IXP traffic increased by 49.2% (24.5% annualized), with regionally distinct diurnal patterns and event-driven anomalies. These results provide an accessible framework for researchers and operators to study the Internet’s evolving ecosystem from an IXP-based perspective, and lay the groundwork for systematic, global-scale detection of network anomalies and outages.

Cite As Get BibTex

Ege Cem Kirci, Ayush Mishra, and Laurent Vanbever. Five Blind Men and the Internet: Towards an Understanding of Internet Traffic. In 1st New Ideas in Networked Systems (NINeS 2026). Open Access Series in Informatics (OASIcs), Volume 139, pp. 25:1-25:26, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2026) https://doi.org/10.4230/OASIcs.NINeS.2026.25

Author Details

Ege Cem Kirci
  • Networked Systems Group, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Ayush Mishra
  • Networked Systems Group, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
Laurent Vanbever
  • Networked Systems Group, ETH Zürich, Switzerland

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