The fact that the Internet is able to expand at the rate that it is, without seriously impacting the performance experienced by individual users, is a function of the design of the protocols and underlying technologies on which it is built. The Internet has a hierarchical layered structure for addressing, for naming, and for connectivity services. As a result, network traffic that is destined for local or regional services does not need to traverse to a central point for distribution. Common services can be duplicated in different regions, thereby keeping traffic off the higher level backbone networks