Guide · not a live feed

BackboneMap

The backbone of the net — how we're all connected.

A free guide to the public tools that show how the internet physically connects the world: towers, broadband, routing, exchanges, data centers, fiber, satellites, and the cloud.

Follow the Packet

Illustration. Pulses are decorative.

Path · 8 stops

Follow the Packet

Topics, not layers — order is not sequential.

Every message you send takes a trip. Here's the route, from the device in your hand out to the cloud. These are stops on a packet's trip, not OSI network layers. The blinking marks are decorative, not live data. Stops are grouped by topic, not strict travel order: routing, addressing, and monitoring happen at every step, and exchanges usually sit inside data centers.

  1. EDGE

    Your device, Wi-Fi, and cell towers

    This is the first hop, the stretch operators call the edge or "last mile", the phone or laptop in your hand, the Wi-Fi router in the room, or the cell tower down the street. A message enters the internet here, over the air or through a short cable.

    ToolsCellMapperOpenCelliD

    More tools (11)
    Who governs it
    • REGULATORFCC (towers & spectrum)Licenses non-federal spectrum (commercial, public safety, amateur) and sets federal rules for tower registration, siting limits, and environmental review.
    • REGULATORNTIA Spectrum ManagementManages federal government spectrum, like military and FAA radar.
    • REGULATORFAA Obstruction EvaluationStructures over 200 ft, or near airports, must notify the FAA, which checks for air hazards and specifies lighting and marking.
    • REGULATORLocal zoningLocal governments approve tower sites, within federal limits.
    • REGULATORITU-RMaintains the Radio Regulations treaty, which allocates spectrum bands to radio services worldwide and records frequency and satellite-orbit assignments.
    • STANDARDS3GPPWrites the 4G and 5G standards.
    • STANDARDSWireless Innovation ForumCBRS spectrum-sharing standards.
  2. Connects to the next stop →Backhaul
  3. ACCESS

    Your internet provider and home broadband

    From there it rides your internet provider's network — the wires and wireless links that serve a house, a block, or a town. Public maps show who offers service at an address, and measurement tools show how that path behaves.

    ToolsFCC National Broadband MapM-Lab

    More tools (4)
    Who governs it
  4. Connects to the next stop →What is an autonomous system?
  5. ROUTE

    Routing between networks (BGP)

    Once it leaves your provider, traffic is handed from network to network. Each network (an "autonomous system") uses BGP, the Border Gateway Protocol, to tell its neighbors which blocks of IP addresses it can reach, and by what path. Routers use those announcements to pick the next hop.

    ToolsHurricane Electric BGP ToolkitRIPEstatCAIDA AS Rank

    More tools (5)
    Who governs it
    • REGISTRYIANATop-level allocation of IP blocks, network numbers, and the DNS root zone.
    • COORDINATIONICANNCoordinates the internet's unique identifiers (domain names, IP addresses, AS numbers) and oversees IANA; a multistakeholder nonprofit, not a government.
    • REGISTRYNRO (the five RIRs)Joint body of the regional registries that hand out addresses.
    • REGISTRYARINRegistry for the U.S., Canada, and many Caribbean and North Atlantic islands; policy is set by community participation.
    • STANDARDSIETFWrites the internet's protocols (IP, BGP, DNS, RPKI) as open RFCs.
    • COMMUNITY · not a regulatorMANRSA voluntary routing-security initiative, run by the Global Cyber Alliance since 2024.
  6. SIDE BRANCHADDRESSES

    IP numbers: the internet's address book

    Every network, and every device that talks to the internet, needs an IP address, though many homes and phones share one public IPv4 address. IANA hands large blocks to five regional registries, which pass them to ISPs, clouds, and other networks. The original IPv4 pool (about 4.3 billion addresses) ran out at IANA in 2011. The regional registries have since run down their free pools, so the far larger IPv6 is slowly taking over.

    ToolsARIN RDAP lookupGoogle IPv6 statisticsIs BGP safe yet?

    More tools (10)
  7. Connects to the next stop →What is peering?
  8. EXCHANGE

    Internet exchanges and peering

    Many of those handoffs happen at an internet exchange point (IXP): a shared network switch, usually inside a data center, where many networks connect and swap traffic directly. Swapping traffic directly, at an IXP or over a private cable between two networks, is called peering. Paying another network to carry your traffic to the rest of the internet is called transit.

    ToolsPeeringDBPCH IXP DirectoryEuro-IX

    More tools (6)
    Who governs it
    • COMMUNITY · not a regulatorNANOGWhere network operators share knowledge.
    • COMMUNITY · not a regulatorInternet SocietyAdvocacy and education; organizational home of the IETF.

    Peering is mostly private agreements between networks.

  9. Connects to the next stop →Meet-me room
  10. BUILDING

    Data centers

    The servers answering your clicks sit in data centers — buildings built for power, cooling, and fiber. Networks rent space there so their equipment can sit next to everyone else's.

    ToolsData Center MapBaxtelHostDir

    More tools (10)
    Who governs it
    • REGULATORFERCRegulates interstate transmission and wholesale power markets.
    • REGULATORNERCSets and enforces grid reliability standards, overseen by FERC.
    • REGULATORState utility commissions (NARUC)Retail power rates and utility service to data centers.
    • REGULATOREPA Stationary EnginesAir rules for backup diesel generators.
    • REGULATORLocal zoningCounties and cities decide land use and permits.
    • STANDARDSTIA (TIA-942)A widely used U.S. standard for data center telecom infrastructure.
  11. Connects to the next stop →Cable landing stations
  12. FIBER

    Subsea and long-haul fiber

    Between cities, and under the ocean, the trip is mostly pulses of light in glass fiber. These maps show the cables themselves: buried along roads, or laid across the seafloor.

    ToolsSubmarine Cable MapInfrapediaITU Broadband Maps

    More tools (7)
    Who governs it
  13. Connects to the next stop →Ground station
  14. ORBIT

    Satellites

    Not every packet goes to space. Where a cable can't go, a satellite can. A dish, or in some places a phone, talks to a spacecraft. The signal may hop between satellites over laser links, then comes down to a ground station (a gateway) that connects to the fiber network.

    ToolsSatellite MapStarlink availability

    More tools (3)
    Who governs it
  15. Connects to the next stop →What is a CDN?
  16. WATCH

    The cloud, and keeping watch

    The cloud is computing and storage you rent inside someone else's data centers, reached over every stop before it. Separately, public dashboards watch the whole path for outages and unusual traffic, so anyone can see when a route goes dark.

    ToolsCloudflare RadarIODARIPE Atlas

    More tools (5)
    Who governs it · telecom regulators worldwide
    • GOV SECURITYCISA Communications SectorU.S. critical-infrastructure security lead for communications.
    • TREATY BODYITUThe UN agency for information and communication technology.
    • COORDINATIONBEREC (EU)Coordinates national telecom regulators across the EU.
    • REGULATOROfcom (UK)The UK's communications regulator.

    17. Regulators make binding rules; registries hand out shared resources; treaty bodies and coordinators set international frameworks; government funding programs pay for buildout; standards bodies and communities are voluntary. Simplified overview, not legal advice.

Shelf · talks

Learn from the builders

Run by the people who keep the internet running. These talks are a place to hear them explain the physical network in their own words.

Other resources

Bench · your connection

Check your connection

Quick public tests for the connection in front of you. They measure your own line. They are not a map of the backbone.

Origin

About

BackboneMap is a thank-you to the people who keep the internet running, and a free guide for anyone who wants to see how. Every tool here is already public. We don't host the maps or the data — we just point the way, one stop at a time.