The Digital Handshake: Connecting Internet Backbones

== Citation

Michael Kende, The Digital Handshake: Connecting Internet Backbones, FCC Office of Plans and Policy (OSP Working Paper 32) (Sept. 2000) (full-text).

Overview
This paper examines the interconnection arrangements between Internet backbone providers that lead to the universal connectivity that characterizes the Internet. Since its commercialization in 1995, the Internet has served as an example of a network industry in which interconnection agreements are reached through commercial negotiations in a "handshake," rather than a regulated, environment.

This paper offers a primer describing the existing Internet interconnection agreements &mdash; notably peering arrangements &mdash; which have arisen in place of traditional regulation.