%0 Journal Article
%@ 0295-5075      
%A Caldarelli, Guido
%A Marchetti, Riccardo
%A Pietronero, Luciano
%D 2000
%F eprints:1164
%I IOPscience
%J EPL (Europhysics Letters)
%K PACS: 92.40.Fb Rivers, runoff, and streamflow; 05.10.-a Computational methods in statistical physics and nonlinear dynamics; 
%N 4
%P 386-391
%T The fractal properties of Internet
%U http://eprints.imtlucca.it/1164/
%V 52
%X In this paper we show that the Internet web, from a user's perspective, manifests robust scaling properties of the type P(n) propto n−τ, where n is the size of the basin connected to a given point, P represents the density of probability of finding n points downhill and τ = 1.9 ± 0.1 s a characteristic universal exponent. This scale-free structure is a result of the spontaneous growth of the web, but is not necessarily the optimal one for efficient transport. We introduce an appropriate figure of merit and suggest that a planning of few big links, acting as information highways, may noticeably increase the efficiency of the net without affecting its robustness.