Long-Term Power-Law Fluctuation in Internet Traffic

Abstract

Power-law fluctuation in observed Internet packet flow are discussed. The data is obtained by a multi router traffic grapher (MRTG) system for 9 months. The internet packet flow is analyzed using the detrended fluctuation analysis. By extracting the average daily trend, the data shows clear power-law fluctuations. The exponents of the fluctuation for the incoming and outgoing flow are almost unity. Internet traffic can be understood as a daily periodic flow with power-law fluctuations.