ABSTRACT
Over the last decade or so there has been a phenomenal growth in the use and diversity of information and communications technologies (ICTs), with the rise of the Internet being of particular note. As of September 2002, there were 605.6 million people from around the world using the Internet for all manner of personal and business communications (Nua 2003). Along with this growth, there has been a multi-billion dollar investment in vast assemblages of powerful computer servers and the infrastructure necessary to support current and projected demand in information processing and exchange, including long-haul, fiber-optic backbone networks to link countries and metropolitan cores, highspeed routers and switches, and “last-mile” DSL and cable. Understanding the development and growth of ICTs, the myriad of their social, economic, and political consequences, as well as the practical tasks of planning infrastructure deployment, however, is no easy task. In this chapter, we argue that one useful strategy for analyzing and comprehending the Internet is the application of concepts and techniques from cartography and geographic visualization.
